When was agrippina the younger born

Production place Minted in: Docimeium. Production place Minted in: Hierocaesarea. Production place Minted in: Rome city. Production place Minted in: Antiochia ad Orontem.

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Production place Minted in: Crete. Production place Minted in: Eumenea. Production place Minted in: Myndus. Production place Minted in: Synaus. Production place Minted in: Ephesus. By late AD 54 Britannicus was only a few months from his 13th birthday, the age at which Nero had been promoted to manhood.

It was at this moment that Claudius, having eaten a dish of mushrooms at dinner, became violently ill and died during the night. Agrippina kept the death concealed until noon the next day, then sent her son Nero out to meet his destiny.

On cue, the soldiers outside the palace hailed him as imperator, while Britannicus, detained within his chambers, remained off the scene. By the end of the day the transfer of power was complete and Rome had gained a princeps who was not yet Did Agrippina poison Claudius, as the ancient sources believe she did, to prevent him from advancing Britannicus?

Modern scholars are divided in their opinions. But it would be hard to argue she was incapable of murder. She had spent six years or more preparing the guard, the palace bureaucracy and the Roman people for his accession. Agrippina meant to claim a steep reward from her son for her king-making services — a sizeable share of power.

She went about Rome with two lictors marching before her, as well as a bodyguard of strapping Germans. Although sessions of the Senate remained closed to non-members, she arranged for that body to meet in a room of the palace where she could listen in from behind a curtain. Nero at first appeared agreeable to all this. But family harmony in the palace was to be short lived. But Nero disliked his young wife and treated her with contempt.

Once in power, he took up instead with Acte, a Greek ex-slave on the palace staff. Seneca tried gamely to help him hide the affair, but Agrippina got wind of it and went into a rage.

This turned Agrippina apoplectic. In a tirade recorded by the historian Tacitus, she vowed to have the Praetorians oust Nero and replace him with Britannicus. This threat had to be taken seriously, since Agrippina had for years cultivated the allegiance of the Guard. The young princeps had declared independence from his mother by killing his adoptive brother. Agrippina herself was turned out of the palace and stripped of her German bodyguard. All of Rome got the message that the regime now considered her persona non grata.

She went into seclusion at a family estate and little is heard of her in the sources for the next several years. A final reckoning between mother and son still loomed. As he reached his twenties, Nero became infatuated with Poppaea Sabina, an astute, lusty divorcee eight years his senior. Again Agrippina sought to dissuade him, but this time used a new stratagem.

Poppaea wanted badly to replace Octavia as empress and regarded Agrippina as her main obstacle. She mocked Nero for not standing up to his mother and vowed to go back to her ex-husband unless he did. When he died after a brief and undiagnosed illness while touring the eastern Mediterranean provinces, the Roman people were convinced that Tiberius had ordered his assassination out of jealousy and fear.

Agrippina the Elder was also certain that Tiberius was responsible for her husband's death. The four-year-old Agrippina, who was brought to the village of Tarracina to meet her mother and accompany her father's ashes on their journey home, could not have remembered him or her austere mother well.

The agonizing public procession to Rome, however, through crowds running wild with grief and anger at the death of their favorite, surely left an indelible impression. Her mother's dignified but clearly heart-felt grief caught the imagination of the Roman people and won popular esteem for the widow and her children. If Tiberius had not felt jealous and uneasy earlier, he now had good cause for worry.

Agrippina the Elder was too ambitious to spend the rest of her life in quiet widowhood with her children. Her relationship to Tiberius was further complicated by her status: as a granddaughter of Augustus, she was heir to political connections and influence, making any second husband an automatic threat to Tiberius's plans for the succession.

In such a thoroughly political household, it is likely that the young Agrippina would have been aware of the trial of her father's accused assassin who ended inquiries by committing suicide. She would also have known of the deepening public hostility between her mother and Emperor Tiberius, who had not even come to the ceremony when the ashes of Germanicus were placed in the tomb of Augustus. Attending state dinners, Agrippina the Elder ostentatiously took precautions against poison in her dishes.

In 26 AD, she finally asked Tiberius for permission to remarry, but he neglected to reply. Modern historians of Rome are more inclined than their ancient counterparts to believe that the model matron Agrippina the Elder was aggressor, as well as victim, and that she was providing aid and support to the enemies of Tiberius even if she wasn't actively plotting against him.

In a move to reduce the family's potential for making alliances, Tiberius decided that Agrippina the Younger would marry the much older Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus in 28 AD. Betrothal of year-old girls, with marriage to follow shortly, was common among Romans.

Suetonius described Agrippina's new husband as a "wholly despicable character" who was "remarkably dishonest. Agrippina was only 14 when her mother and oldest brother were arrested in 29 AD and exiled to prison islands. Though her second brother had supplied evidence against them, he was the next to be arrested.

Held in the imperial palace, he was starved to death. As for the third brother, Caligula, Tiberius alternated between ignoring and honoring him. In 33 AD, Agrippina the Elder starved herself to death, while her son Caligula's portrait was put on coins.

The year 37 AD saw the death of Tiberius, the accession to the throne of Caligula, and the birth of Agrippina the Younger's only child, Nero.

But if Agrippina thought she was finally safe, she was wrong. Initially, Caligula heaped honors upon his sisters, as only they and he had survived childhood diseases and the hatred of Tiberius.

Receiving all of the privileges and public honors previously reserved for Vestal Virgins, the three sisters were included in the annual vows of allegiance to the emperor. Their portraits were also put on coins. Caligula was especially devoted to his sister Drusilla who died in 38 AD.

Disaster struck in 39 AD when the imperial family visited and inspected the armies on the Rhine frontier. While they were still in the north, Caligula became convinced that both of his surviving sisters were involved in a love affair and a conspiracy against him with Drusilla's widower, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.

Though it seems unlikely that both sisters were dallying with Lepidus, it is possible that Lepidus and the two women had decided that Caligula was becoming unstable and an increasing threat to them. In any case, after retrieving his oldest brother's ashes from the island of Ponti, Caligula sent Agrippina into exile there.

Suetonius believed that he was planning to execute his two sisters at the time of his death. He died suddenly while in Syria and it was widely believed that Tiberius had poisoned him. He maintained his immense popularity even after his death. The youngest son Gaius survived the executions that claimed his mother and brothers, so inherited the empire from Tiberius in AD 37, before he was Although he only ruled for four years, he has become infamous for his capricious, sadistic and perverted nature.

When the Praetorian Guard launched a coup, Gaius, his wife and daughter were assassinated. After a tumultuous childhood, Nero became emperor in AD The early years of his reign were seen as successful, but his behaviour deteriorated. His reign is associated with cruelty and numerous executions. He was overthrown in AD 68 after several generals revolted against him. Having fled Rome, he committed suicide.

As he suffered from a stammer, uncontrolled emotional responses and a propensity to drool, he had no political career until he became emperor in AD His rule was initially tumultuous and authoritarian, but became more peaceful after his marriage to his fourth wife: Agrippina. She allegedly poisoned him with a mushroom.

This outraged later Roman commentators whose morals were offended by such an act and such a marriage. Claudius was forced to have the incest laws changed in order for the marriage to be allowed.

Why he chose to marry his niece is forever a mystery. One source claims Agrippina seduced him, using her familial access to him to manipulate his weakness for women. In this version, Agrippina is an aggressive temptress, willing to sell her body to her own uncle in exchange for power.

In this version, Agrippina is a passive bystander, little more than a walking bloodline. These are both narrative tropes, not real life. Instead, Agrippina was a mother in her 30s, hugely powerful on the basis of her name, money and connections.

She was neither a passive womb, nor a young temptress. But she had female power, amounting to influence over her male relatives who exerted the real, tangible power. And she only used it in private spaces, never trying to enter public life herself. She wanted real power. Originally named Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, its name was eventually shortened to its modern name: Cologne.