Following her mother Julia's exile, Agrippina, future mother of the Emperor Caligula, was raised by her grandfather Augustus and Livia
-Two women named Agrippina symbolize the stresses of the growing Roman Empire in the early first century AD. Tacitus' magnificent histories of the period are a primary source for our knowledge of the unfortunate Agrippina the Elder (daughter of Agrippa and granddaughter of Augustus) and her daughter, Agrippina the Younger. Both women have been studied in recent years as reflecting the particular political dangers, not only of the Julio-Claudian reign of Tiberius, but also the particular dangers for women who attempted to step out from the invisible protection of home and family into the political spotlight. Both women paid a bitter price for their involvement.
The story of the younger Agrippina has often been told as a cautionary tale, from her supposed murder of the Emperor husband, Claudius, to her eventual murder by her Emperor son, Nero. Yet the events and lessons of her mother's life, although less well known, are no less instructive in illustrating the early Empire.
Granddaughter of Augustus
Vipsania Agrippina was the daughter of Augustus' invaluable ally, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and of Julia, Augustus' only daughter. She was thus raised intimately within Rome's first imperial family under the stern eye of her step-grandmother, Livia. As a member of that family, Agrippina would have been expected to embody the same strict Roman virtues as her mother and grandmother; frugality, chastity, and domesticity. Insofar as the traditional values described above applied to her mother, Julia failed spectacularly at all three and was banished by the Emperor; yet to the end of her days, Agrippina arrogantly prized her descent from the divine Augustus.
In 11 BC, after Agrippa's death (by whom Julia had five children), Augustus forced Julia into a political marriage with her stepbrother, Tiberius, Livia's son. Agrippina was 3 years old when Augustus became her stepfather. The marriage, initially tranquil, became deeply dysfunctional. Tiberius left Rome for Rhodes, allegedly to avoid the scandal of his wife's sexually infidelities.
In 2 BC, when Agrippina was only 12, Augustus discovered that his daughter was whiling away her spare time by committing adulteries on a notorious scale. The fact that Julia had been forced into not one, but three, loveless political marriages at her father's behest was no excuse. Augustus had passed severe laws against adultery in his attempts at moral reform. Allegedly he learned of her behavior through her sons (and his adopted children), Gaius and Lucius, Agrippina's brothers, who protested that their mother's behavior was notorious.
Augustus banished Julia for life to the island of Pandateria off the western Italian coast, although she was later permitted to move to slightly easier house arrest at Rhegium. Agrippina never saw her mother again. It would be yet another source of friction between Agrippina and her former stepfather when, after Augustus' death, Tiberius effectively starved Julia to death by stopping her allowance. After Julia's exile, Agrippina and her remaining siblings were raised by Augustus and Livia. One wonders at the psychological impact on the daughter of her mother's passive fate. She could not have imagined that the same fate would befall her.
Life With Germanicus, 5-19 AD
At the age of 18 or 19, Agrippina was married to Nero Claudius Drusus "Germanicus", Livia's grandson, probably in 5 AD. It is important to understand that Germanicus, son of Livia's son Drusus (brother of Tiberius), was an attractive, educated general with genuine star-power popularity with the Roman people. She bore him nine children, half of whom would die in the imperial power-struggles following the death of Augustus. She was by all accounts a loyal and affectionate wife and supported her husband while on campaign in the approved manner.
Germanicus, adopted by Tiberius in 4 AD, earned his military reputation, as his father had before him, by conquests in Germania. Agrippina and the children followed him to the Rhine during his campaigns of 14-16 AD. Her son Gaius, nicknamed "Little Boots" for his infant copy of the Roman legionary uniform, spent his early years in the legionary camps there, although probably born in Italy where his mother came for her delivery. A charming and affectionate letter to Agrippina from Augustus describes sending the imperial physician to her together with baby Gaius for her return to her husband's command (Suetonius, Caligula).
Rome was still reeling from the disastrous massacre of three legions under Quinctilius Varus in the Tuetoberg Forest in 9 AD. Part of Germanicus' popularity came from his successes there and the frenzy of Rome to avenge former defeats. When legions on the Rhine mutinied near Cologne, Agrippina and her children featured prominently in its conclusion. As Tacitus relates, when Germanicus decided to send his pregnant wife and young Caligula away from the mutinous camp, "His wife scorned the proposal, reminding him that she was of the blood of the divine Augustus and would live up to it, whatever the danger." Annals, I.40. Persuaded to leave, Agrippina, her son, and her weeping women left for the safety of the Treveri tribe; the pathetic spectacle of Augustus' pregnant granddaughter and her son refugeeing to a barbarian tribe rather than trust the loyalty of her husband's legions is credited with having turned the mutiny around and saved Germanicus' position with his army. Obviously Agrippina knew how to stage a scene, as she would in a later crisis.
Strain was beginning to show between Germanicus and the dour Tiberius, who became Emperor when Augustus died in 14. Tiberius may have resented Germanicus' popularity with the people. While Germanicus publicly favored conquest of German lands outside the empire; Tiberius adhered to Augustus' recommendation that Rome not extend her current borders. It may be that the personable Germanicus' glamorous popularity also contrasted unfavorably with Tiberius' rather gloomy efficiency.
The Death of Germanicus, 19 AD
When Tiberius recalled them from Germania, Agrippina watched her husband triumph in Rome in 17 before going with him to his proconsular command in the east as governor of Syria. After successful actions in Cappadocia and Nicopolis, Germanicus fell out with Tiberius in 19 when, to tumultuous personal acclaim, he entered Egypt without permission. When Germanicus returned to Syria, he found Tiberius had installed Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso there. After ordering Piso to leave the province, Germanicus mysteriously fell ill near Antioch and died. Many, including Agrippina, believed he had been poisoned, presumably by Piso, either on the orders or with the knowledge of a jealous Tiberius.
Tacitus claims that, as Germanicus lay dying, "...he turned to his wife and begged her to shed her ferocity for his sake and for the sake of their children, and also to resign herself to cruel fate, and that once she had returned to Rome not to rile up those who were more powerful in a struggle for ascendancy." Tacitus, Annals, II.72.1 'Ferocity' is, in this context, an interesting and deliberately de-sexing choice of words. However traditionally she had behaved up to the death of her husband, Agrippina would aggressively step beyond approved behavior in the years of widowhood ahead.
"Wild with grief," Agrippina returned to Brundisium carrying her children, her own suspicions, and an urn containing Germanicus' ashes. Awaiting her there were thousands of ordinary Romans as well as her brother-in-law, the future Emperor Claudius. Here was another opportunity to stage an unforgettable scene and make a point. Tacitus paints a picture of grief-stricken mourners lining the road all the way from Brundisium to the public funeral at Augustus' mausoleum in Rome, from which both Tiberius and his mother, Livia, were conspicuously absent:
Benjamin West, "Agrippina Landing at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus, 1768.
"The day on which the remains were consigned to the tomb of Augustus was now desolate in its silence, now distracted by lamentations. The streets of the city were crowded; torches were blazing throughout the Campus Martius. There the soldiers under arms, the magistrates without their symbols of office, the people in the tribes, were all incessantly exclaiming that the commonwealth was ruined, that not a hope remained, too boldly and openly to let one think that they remembered their rulers. But nothing impressed Tiberius more deeply than the enthusiasm kindled in favor of Agrippina, whom men spoke of as the glory of the country, the sole surviving offspring of Augustus, the solitary example of the old times, while looking up to heaven and the gods they prayed for the safety of her children and that they might outlive their oppressors." Annals, III, 4.
Tiberius and Sejanus, 19-33 AD
Agrippina lived uneasily in Rome from 19 to 29. She soon became the rallying point for senators opposing the growing power of L. Aelius Sejanus, sole prefect of the Praetorian Guard, during his rise to power in the '20's. Particularly after the suspicious death of Tiberius' only son, Drusus, in 23, Sejanus' power was largely unhindered. He insinuated himself within Tiberius by finding evidence through informers of supposed disloyalty to the current regime; this endeared him to an increasingly suspicious Emperor while increasing a police-state atmosphere in Rome.
Sejanus' agents soon placed Agrippina and her family under surveillance for her outspoken hints that Tiberius had been involved in her husband's death. Agrippina's hostility to Tiberius may have been natural, but was both dangerous and arrogant. She dared to confront him openly with her suspicions and reproaches. Suetonius writes that, "When Agrippina said more than was wise about her husband's death, Tiberius took her by the hand, quoting the Greek line: 'And if you are not queen, my dear, have I then done you wrong?' and this was the last question that he ever condescended to ask her." Life. Allegedly, invited to a banquet at the imperial palace, she publicly refused food offered her personally by the Emperor for fear of poison, an action which created a scandal.
" Agrippina was always truculent, but she was further roused at that time because of the danger to her kin. She went straight to Tiberius and by chance found him sacrificing to his father. She used this to begin her abuse of him and said it was inconsistent for the same man to offer sacrifices to the deified Augustus and to attack his descendants. Augustus' divine spirit had not been passed on to mute statues: she was the true likeness since she was born of heavenly blood...In vain was Pulchra being persecuted, who was being destroyed only because she foolishly cherished her friendship with Agrippina ...But Agrippina nursing her resentment and physically ill, when Tiberius paid a call to her sick bed, she poured forth tears for a while in silence, but later she began to insult him and entreat him: he should alleviate her loneliness and give her a husband...But Caesar...although she was pressing him, left without giving an answer. "
Tacitus, Annals, IV.52-53.
Once Tiberius abandoned Rome for Capri in 26, Sejanus pursued Agrippina and her children and friends without hindrance. Agrippina allegedly asked Tiberius for permission to remarry in 26 (perhaps seeking additional protection) but was refused. In 29, on Tiberius' orders, she was arrested by Sejanus and she and her oldest son, Nero Julius Caesar, were banished by a complaisant Senate to Pandateria, the selfsame island of her mother's exile. Her second son, Drusus, was imprisoned in a Palatine prison in 30 AD. and died (allegedly of starvation) shortly thereafter, pathetically trying to gnaw a mattress of moldy straw if Tacitus is to be believed.
Agrippina the Younger, daughter of Agrippina and mother of Nero.
She was murdered by her son in 59 AD
During the troubles Agrippina's son, Gaius "Caligula," apparently living with his grandmother and, later, his grandmother Antonia. He was also targeted by Sejanus: when Sejanus fell in 30, part of Tiberius' charge against him was that he was plotting against Caligula as well. The death of Sejanus was no reprieve for Agrippina; still on Pandateria, she starved to death in 33, either deliberately or by force. Suetonius states that the granddaughter of Augustus was actually flogged (on Tiberius' orders) so violently that she lost an eye. Only four of her nine children survived her; the future emperor, Gaius "Caligula" - who, as Emperor, would be assassinated in 41 - and three daughters, including Julia Agrippina the Younger.
Agrippina is significant not only by her active participation in her husband's career but by her willingness to assume a leading role after his death for those who opposed the political acts of Sejanus and Tiberius. Most of our information concerning her comes from Tacitus Annals in which he attempts to exalt Germanicus at the expense of Tiberius. Yet Tacitus himself speaks of Agrippina in guarded or hostile tones. She is praised for loyalty and puducitia, that combination of fertility and devoted motherhood so highly valued by Roman society; however, she is also described as self-willed, fiercely unfeminine, and too willing to thrust herself into her husband's life, at one point even encouraging his disheartened soldiers on campaign.
In later books of the Annals, Tacitus' disapproval becomes more evident. Modestly staying in the background of political life was an absolute requirement for a respectable Roman woman. The fact that Agrippina, instead, "... poorly concealed her hopes also hastened their (i.e. the house of Germanicus') destruction. ...the pudicitia of Agrippina was unassailable. Therefore, he (Sejanus) attacked her arrogance ... they (agents of Sejanus) alleged, in the presence of Tiberius, that she boasted of her fertility, and relying upon her popularity with the people, that her mouth was watering for supreme power." Annals,, IV.12.
Tacitus seems particularly offended that a woman should use her much-praised fertility to obtain political influence. From his disapproval, later historians also judged Agrippina harshly as a haughty troublemaker, obsessed with her descent from Augustus, attempting to interfere in male spheres. There is the sense she earned her just desserts. Less prejudiced history has not dealt kindly with Agrippina either - after all, she was the mother of the insufferable Caligula and Agrippina the Younger.
In the better-known career of Agrippina the Younger, the same criticisms would be even more sharply sounded so that her eventual murder would seem, if not justified, then at least not surprising. It is easy to imagine a traditional Roman commenting, "Like mother - like daughter."
-Compare Agrippina. She is very much at the head end of the statue. Her behavior after the death of her husband Germanicus is impeccable -- her dignified and decorous mourning -- but she turns out to be too masculine. And this is the paradox of women's gendering in ancient Rome. They were expected to be masculine, but not too much. A woman was thus caught in a double bind: she was either too womanish, or too mannish. After her death Tacitus describes her thus:
Actually, Agrippina knew no feminine weaknesses. Intolerant of rivalry, thirsting for power, she had a man's preoccupations. (p.212)
It is this masculine strength and impermeability that troubles Tiberius. It is illustrative that when Agrippina's son, Nero Caesar, is accused of being sexually penetrated, she is accused not of indecency, but of insubordination:
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2. Cluvius relates that Agrippina in her eagerness to retain her influence went so far that more than once at midday, when Nero, even at that hour, was flushed with wine and feasting, she presented herself attractively attired to her half intoxicated son and offered him her person, and that when kinsfolk observed wanton kisses and caresses, portending infamy, it was Seneca who sought a female's aid against a woman's fascinations, and hurried in Acte, the freed-girl, who alarmed at her own peril and at Nero's disgrace, told him that the incest was notorious, as his mother boasted of it, and that the soldiers would never endure the rule of an impious sovereign. Fabius Rusticus tells us that it was not Agrippina, but Nero, who lusted for the crime, and that it was frustrated by the adroitness of that same freed-girl. Cluvius's account, however, is also that of all other authors, and popular belief inclines to it, whether it was that Agrippina really conceived such a monstrous wickedness in her heart, or perhaps because the thought of a strange passion seemed comparatively credible in a woman, who in her girlish years had allowed herself to be seduced by Lepidus in the hope of winning power, had stooped with a like ambition to the lust of Pallas, and had trained herself for every infamy by her marriage with her uncle.
3. Nero accordingly avoided secret interviews with her, and when she withdrew to her gardens or to her estates at Tusculum and Antium, he praised her for courting repose.
At last, convinced that she would be too formidable, wherever she might dwell, he resolved to destroy her, merely deliberating whether it was to be accomplished by poison, or by the sword, or by any other violent means. Poison at first seemed best, but, were it to be administered at the imperial table, the result could not be referred to chance after the recent circumstances of the death of Britannicus. Again, to tamper with the servants of a woman who, from her familiarity with crime, was on her guard against treachery, appeared to be extremely difficult, and then, too, she had fortified her constitution by the use of antidotes. How again the dagger and its work were to be kept secret, no one could suggest, and it was feared too that whoever might be chosen to execute such a crime would spurn the order.
An ingenious suggestion was offered by Anicetus, a freedman, commander of the fleet at Misenum, who had been tutor to Nero in boyhood and had a hatred of Agrippina which she reciprocated. He explained that a vessel could be constructed, from which a part might by a contrivance be detached, when out at sea, so as to plunge her unawares into the water. Nothing, he said, allowed of accidents so much as the sea, and should she be overtaken by shipwreck, who would be so unfair as to impute to crime an offence committed by the winds and waves? The emperor would add the honour of a temple and of shrines to the deceased lady, with every other display of filial affection.
4. Nero liked the device, favoured as it also was by the particular time, for he was celebrating Minerva's five days' festival at Baiae. Thither he enticed his mother by repeated assurances that children ought to bear with the irritability of parents and to soothe their tempers, wishing thus to spread a rumour of reconciliation and to secure Agrippina's acceptance through the feminine credulity, which easily believes what joy. As she approached, he went to the shore to meet her (she was coming from Antium), welcomed her with outstretched hand and embrace, and conducted her to Bauli. This was the name of a country house, washed by a bay of the sea, between the promontory of Misenum and the lake of Baiae. Here was a vessel distinguished from others by its equipment, seemingly meant, among other things, to do honour to his mother; for she had been accustomed to sail in a trireme, with a crew of marines. And now she was invited to a banquet, that night might serve to conceal the crime. It was well known that somebody had been found to betray it, that Agrippina had heard of the plot, and in doubt whether she was to believe it, was conveyed to Baiae in her litter. There some soothing words allayed her fear; she was graciously received, and seated at table above the emperor. Nero prolonged the banquet with various conversation, passing from a youth's playful familiarity to an air of constraint, which seemed to indicate serious thought, and then, after protracted festivity, escorted her on her departure, clinging with kisses to her eyes and bosom, either to crown his hypocrisy or because the last sight of a mother on the eve of destruction caused a lingering even in that brutal heart.
5. A night of brilliant starlight with the calm of a tranquil sea was granted by heaven, seemingly, to convict the crime. The vessel had not gone far, Agrippina having with her two of her intimate attendants, one of whom, Crepereius Gallus, stood near the helm, while Acerronia, reclining at Agrippina's feet as she reposed herself, spoke joyfully of her son's repentance and of the recovery of the mother's influence, when at a given signal the ceiling of the place, which was loaded with a quantity of lead, fell in, and Crepereius was crushed and instantly killed. Agrippina and Acerronia were protected by the projecting sides of the couch, which happened to be too strong to yield under the weight. But this was not followed by the breaking up of the vessel; for all were bewildered, and those too, who were in the plot, were hindered by the unconscious majority. The crew then thought it best to throw the vessel on one side and so sink it, but they could not themselves promptly unite to face the emergency, and others, by counteracting the attempt, gave an opportunity of a gentler fall into the sea. Acerronia, however, thoughtlessly exclaiming that she was Agrippina, and imploring help for the emperor's mother, was despatched with poles and oars, and such naval implements as chance offered. Agrippina was silent and was thus the less recognized; still, she received a wound in her shoulder. She swam, then met with some small boats which conveyed her to the Lucrine lake, and so entered her house.
6. There she reflected how for this very purpose she had been invited by a lying letter and treated with conspicuous honour, how also it was near the shore, not from being driven by winds or dashed on rocks, that the vessel had in its upper part collapsed, like a mechanism anything but nautical. She pondered too the death of Acerronia; she looked at her own wound, and saw that her only safeguard against treachery was to ignore it. Then she sent her freedman Agerinus to tell her son how by heaven's favour and his good fortune she had escaped a terrible disaster; that she begged him, alarmed, as he might be, by his mother's peril, to put off the duty of a visit, as for the present she needed repose. Meanwhile, pretending that she felt secure, she applied remedies to her wound, and fomentations to her person. She then ordered search to be made for the will of Acerronia, and her property to be sealed, in this alone throwing off disguise.
7. Nero, meantime, as he waited for tidings of the consummation of the deed, received information that she had escaped with the injury of a slight wound, after having so far encountered the peril that there could be no question as to its author. Then, paralysed with terror and protesting that she would show herself the next moment eager for vengeance, either arming the slaves or stirring up the soldiery, or hastening to the Senate and the people, to charge him with the wreck, with her wound, and with the destruction of her friends, he asked what resource he had against all this, unless something could be at once devised by Burrus and Seneca. He had instantly summoned both of them, and possibly they were already in the secret. There was a long silence on their part; they feared they might remonstrate in vain, or believed the crisis to be such that Nero must perish, unless Agrippina were at once crushed. Thereupon Seneca was so far the more prompt as to glance back on Burrus, as if to ask him whether the bloody deed must be required of the soldiers. Burrus replied that the praetorians were attached to the whole family of the Caesars, and remembering Germanicus would not dare a savage deed on his offspring. It was for Anicetus to accomplish his promise.
Anicetus, without a pause, claimed for himself the consummation of the crime. At those words, Nero declared that that day gave him empire, and that a freedman was the author of this mighty boon. "Go," he said, "with all speed, and take with you the men readiest to execute your orders." He himself, when he had heard of the arrival of Agrippina's messenger, Agerinus, contrived a theatrical mode of accusation, and, while the man was repeating his message, threw down a sword at his feet, then ordered him to be put in irons, as a detected criminal, so that he might invent a story how his mother had plotted the emperor's destruction and in the shame of discovered guilt had by her own choice sought death.
8. Meantime, Agrippina's peril being universally known and taken to be an accidental occurrence, everybody, the moment he heard of it, hurried down to the beach. Some climbed projecting piers; some the nearest vessels; others, as far as their stature allowed, went into the sea; some, again, stood with outstretched arms, while the whole shore rung with wailings, with prayers and cries, as different questions were asked and uncertain answers given. A vast multitude streamed to the spot with torches, and as soon as all knew that she was safe, they at once prepared to wish her joy, till the sight of an armed and threatening force scared them away. Anicetus then surrounded the house with a guard, and having burst open the gates, dragged off the slaves who met him, till he came to the door of her chamber, where a few still stood, after the rest had fled in terror at the attack. A small lamp was in the room, and one slave-girl with Agrippina, who grew more and more anxious, as no messenger came from her son, not even Agerinus, while the appearance of the shore was changed, a solitude one moment, then sudden bustle and tokens of the worst catastrophe. As the girl rose to depart, she exclaimed, "Do you too forsake me?" and looking round saw Anicetus, who had with him the captain of the trireme, Herculeius, and Obaritus, a centurion of marines. "If," said she, "you have come to see me, take back word that I have recovered, but if you are here to do a crime, I believe nothing about my son; he has not ordered his mother's murder."
The assassins closed in round her couch, and the captain of the trireme first struck her head violently with a club. Then, as the centurion bared his sword for the fatal deed, presenting her person, she exclaimed, "Smite my womb!" and with many wounds she was slain.
9. So far our accounts agree. That Nero gazed on his mother after her death and praised her beauty, some have related, while others deny it. Her body was burnt that same night on a dining couch, with a mean funeral; nor, as long as Nero was in power, was the earth raised into a mound, or even decently closed. Subsequently, she received from the solicitude of her domestics, a humble sepulchre on the road to Misenum, near the country house of Caesar the Dictator, which from a great height commands a view of the bay beneath. As soon as the funeral pile was lighted, one of her freedmen, surnamed Mnester, ran himself through with a sword, either from love of his mistress or from the fear of destruction.
Many years before Agrippina had anticipated this end for herself and had spurned the thought. For when she consulted the astrologers about Nero, they replied that he would be emperor and kill his mother. "Let him kill her," she said, "provided he is emperor."
10. But the emperor, when the crime was at last accomplished, realised its portentous guilt. The rest of the night, now silent and stupified, now and still oftener starting up in terror, bereft of reason, he awaited the dawn as if it would bring with it his doom. He was first encouraged to hope by the flattery addressed to him, at the prompting of Burrus, by the centurions and tribunes, who again and again pressed his hand and congratulated him on his having escaped an unforeseen danger and his mother's daring crime. Then his friends went to the temples, and, an example having once been set, the neighbouring towns of Campania testified their joy with sacrifices and deputations. He himself, with an opposite phase of hypocrisy, seemed sad, and almost angry at his own deliverance, and shed tears over his mother's death. But as the aspects of places change not, as do the looks of men, and as he had ever before his eyes the dreadful sight of that sea with its shores (some too believed that the notes of a funereal trumpet were heard from the surrounding heights, and wailings from the mother's grave), he retired to Neapolis and sent a letter to the Senate, the drift of which was that Agerinus, one of Agrippina's confidential freedmen, had been detected with the dagger of an assassin, and that in the consciousness of having planned the crime she had paid its penalty.
11. He even revived the charges of a period long past, how she had aimed at a share of empire, and at inducing the praetorian cohorts to swear obedience to a woman, to the disgrace of the Senate and people; how, when she was disappointed, in her fury with the soldiers, the Senate, and the populace, she opposed the usual donative and largess, and organised perilous prosecutions against distinguished citizens. What efforts had it cost him to hinder her from bursting into the Senate-house and giving answers to foreign nations! He glanced too with indirect censure at the days of Claudius, and ascribed all the abominations of that reign to his mother, thus seeking to show that it was the State's good fortune which had destroyed her. For he actually told the story of the shipwreck; but who could be so stupid as to believe that it was accidental, or that a shipwrecked woman had sent one man with a weapon to break through an emperor's guards and fleets? So now it was not Nero, whose brutality was far beyond any remonstrance, but Seneca who was in ill repute, for having written a confession in such a style.
12. Still there was a marvellous rivalry among the nobles in decreeing thanksgivings at all the shrines, and the celebration with annual games of Minerva's festival, as the day on which the plot had been discovered; also, that a golden image of Minerva with a statue of the emperor by its side should be set up in the Senate-house, and that Agrippina's birthday should be classed among the inauspicious days. Thrasea Paetus, who had been used to pass over previous flatteries in silence or with brief assent, then walked out of the Senate, thereby imperilling himself, without communicating to the other senators any impulse towards freedom.
There occurred too a thick succession of portents, which meant nothing. A woman gave birth to a snake, and another was killed by a thunderbolt in her husband's embrace. Then the sun was suddenly darkened and the fourteen districts of the city were struck by lightning. All this happened quite without any providential design; so much so, that for many subsequent years Nero prolonged his reign and his crimes. Still, to deepen the popular hatred towards his mother, and prove that since her removal, his clemency had increased, he restored to their ancestral homes two distinguished ladies, Junia and Calpurnia, with two ex-praetors, Valerius Capito and Licinius Gabolus, whom Agrippina had formerly banished. He also allowed the ashes of Lollia Paulina to be brought back and a tomb to be built over them. Iturius and Calvisius, whom he had himself temporarily exiled, he now released from their penalty. Silana indeed had died a natural death at Tarentum, whither she had returned from her distant exile, when the power of Agrippina, to whose enmity she owed her fall, began to totter, or her wrath was at last appeased.
13. While Nero was lingering in the towns of Campania, doubting how he should enter Rome, whether he would find the Senate submissive and the populace enthusiastic, all the vilest courtiers, and of these never had a court a more abundant crop, argued against his hesitation by assuring him that Agrippina's name was hated and that her death had heightened his popularity. He might go without a fear, they said, and experience in his person men's veneration for him. They insisted at the same time on preceding him. They found greater enthusiasm than they had promised, the tribes coming forth to meet him, the Senate in holiday attire, troops of their children and wives arranged according to sex and age, tiers of seats raised for the spectacle, where he was to pass, as a triumph is witnessed. Thus elated and exulting over his people's slavery, he proceeded to the Capitol, performed the thanksgiving, and then plunged into all the excesses, which, though ill-restrained, some sort of respect for his mother had for a while delayed.
14. He had long had a fancy for driving a four-horse chariot, and a no less degrading taste for singing to the harp, in a theatrical fashion, when he was at dinner. This he would remind people was a royal custom, and had been the practice of ancient chiefs; it was celebrated too in the praises of poets and was meant to show honour to the gods. Songs indeed, he said, were sacred to Apollo, and it was in the dress of a singer that that great and prophetic deity was seen in Roman temples as well as in Greek cities. He could no longer be restrained, when Seneca and Burrus thought it best to concede one point that he might not persist in both. A space was enclosed in the Vatican valley where he might manage his horses, without the spectacle being public. Soon he actually invited all the people of Rome, who extolled him in their praises, like a mob which craves for amusements and rejoices when a prince draws them the same way. However, the public exposure of his shame acted on him as an incentive instead of sickening him, as men expected. Imagining that he mitigated the scandal by disgracing many others, he brought on the stage descendants of noble families, who sold themselves because they were paupers. As they have ended their days, I think it due to their ancestors not to hand down their names. And indeed the infamy is his who gave them wealth to reward their degradation rather than to deter them from degrading themselves. He prevailed too on some well-known Roman knights, by immense presents, to offer their services in the amphitheatre; only pay from one who is able to command, carries with it the force of compulsion.
15. Still, not yet wishing to disgrace himself on a public stage, he instituted some games under the title of "juvenile sports," for which people of every class gave in their names. Neither rank nor age nor previous high promotion hindered any one from practising the art of a Greek or Latin actor and even stooping to gestures and songs unfit for a man. Noble ladies too actually played disgusting parts, and in the grove, with which Augustus had surrounded the lake for the naval fight, there were erected places for meeting and refreshment, and every incentive to excess was offered for sale. Money too was distributed, which the respectable had to spend under sheer compulsion and which the profligate gloried in squandering. Hence a rank growth of abominations and of all infamy. Never did a more filthy rabble add a worse licentiousness to our long corrupted morals. Even, with virtuous training, purity is not easily upheld; far less amid rivalries in vice could modesty or propriety or any trace of good manners be preserved. Last of all, the emperor himself came on the stage, tuning his lute with elaborate care and trying his voice with his attendants. There were also present, to complete the show, a guard of soldiers with centurions and tribunes, and Burrus, who grieved and yet applauded. Then it was that Roman knights were first enrolled under the title of Augustani, men in their prime and remarkable for their strength, some, from a natural frivolity, others from the hope of promotion. Day and night they kept up a thunder of applause, and applied to the emperor's person and voice the epithets of deities. Thus they lived in fame and honour, as if on the strength of their merits.
16. Nero however, that he might not be known only for his accomplishments as an actor, also affected a taste for poetry, and drew round him persons who had some skill in such compositions, but not yet generally recognised. They used to sit with him, stringing together verses prepared at home, or extemporised on the spot, and fill up his own expressions, such as they were, just as he threw them off. This is plainly shown by the very character of the poems, which have no vigour or inspiration, or unity in their flow.
He would also bestow some leisure after his banquets on the teachers of philosophy, for he enjoyed the wrangles of opposing dogmatists. And some there were who liked to exhibit their gloomy faces and looks, as one of the amusements of the court.
-When Nero ascended the throne, he was only seventeen and could not legally rule in his own name. Agrippina acted as his regent and was a powerful controlling influence on him even after he had reached the age of eighteen and could govern in his own right. For the first time in Roman history, a woman was given the title of AVGVSTA, meaning "empress", and her portrait appeared on coins with that of her son. Up until that time, women of the imperial household had only been portrayed on coins after they had died.
-Agrippina was married to Germanicus, who was descended from the Claudians, Livia's side of the family. He was a popular military commander and well - loved by the people in Rome. A goodly amount of his popularity was because he made successful raids into German territory. Though he was taking a chance with Roman legions and some said that the military adventures were foolhardy, the fact that they succeeded brought enormous glory to Germanicus, who actually earned the name "Germanicus" because of these raids.
It was probably because of this popularity that both he and Agrippina became entangled in a political web partly of their own creation. The old emperor Augustus had decided to Adopt Tiberius, the son of Livia and T. Claudius Nero. One of the conditions of this adoption was that Tiberius adopt Germanicus as his own son.
In A. D. 19, Germanicus died in the Eastern city of Antioch. Historians have been debating ever since whether it was due to natural causes or murder. In any case, Agrippina was firmly convinced that Tiberius, who had become emperor in A. D. 14, was jealous of Germanicus' popularity and had had him poisoned. Agrippina was herself a very highly respected member of Roman high society and her opinions, if voiced publicly, could be dangerous. Certainly, the reclusive and somewhat sullen Tiberius was nowhere near the popular figure the dead Germanicus had been.
Agrippina scandalized all Rome when she refused to eat or drink at a banquet given by the emperor. From that time on, Tiberius sought an excuse to be rid of her. Finally, in A. D. 29, Agrippina and her two teenage sons were accused of plotting to overthrow Tiberius. They were tried and condemned to exile.
Agrippina's son Nero committed suicide soon after the trial. Her son Drusus died of starvation while imprisoned in Rome a few years later. Agrippina was exiled to the island of Pandateria where she too died of starvation in A. D. 33. Though the official story was that she committed suicide, she was probably starved to death on the orders of the aging emperor Tiberius.