The Woman Who Would Rule Rome

Agrippina and the Julio-Claudian Dynasty

Dear Classical Wisdom Member,

Infamous for banishing, poisoning and divorcing one another, survival within the Julio-Claudian family often meant kill or be killed. 

And yet it was this family of all families that ruled Rome at such a critical time in its history... While understanding the dynamics of the dynasty overall sheds light on this fascinating moment in time, the members are each captivating and terrifying in their own right. 

It begins, of course, with the first emperor of Rome - Octavian turned Augustus. As the man who began it all, his imperial legacy speaks for itself...

Then there was Tiberius, the second Roman Emperor and potentially one of its greatest. A brilliant general, a gloomy and cruel tyrant, a very complex man, to this day he is something of an enigma.

Rome’s third emperor, Caligula is known for his debauchery and his thirst for blood. The tales of Caligula’s excesses have led many scholars to believe that the young emperor was severely deranged—some even call him insane. 

Next was Claudius, a man whose own mother often referred to as “an abortion of a man, that had been only begun, but never finished, by nature”... and yet he is the one to have enjoyed a renaissance of sorts at the hands of the Classicist Robert Graves.

Finally we watch Rome burn with Nero, who became emperor when he was only 16 years old. A student of Seneca, his reign is now marked with fiddles (not yet invented), incest (not completely proved) and murder... lots of murder. 

And through this insane thread of power hungry and unhinged men, runs power hungry and unhinged women. Indeed, possibly the most influential person of the entire Julio-Claudian dynasty (save for the emperors themselves) was Agrippina the Younger. Either niece, sister, wife or mother to four of our five emperors, a very credible case can be made that Roman history would not have progressed in the manner that it did without her controversial and cunning influence.

So today, dear member, we will begin with the fascinating tale of Agrippina the Younger, portrayed as a scheming seductress and sexual siren; she dominated Roman imperial politics in a way that no woman before her had ever attempted.

And while Livia, wife of Augustus, usually grabs the spotlight for most villainous, conniving imperial roman lady (thanks again to Robert Graves), Agrippina was actually vastly more ambitious and successful than her notorious predecessor.

Indeed, Livia never reached the heights of power once wielded by Agrippina. 

So please enjoy our in-depth article on Agrippina the Younger as well as our Ebook (below the article, exclusive for members) on the entire Julio-Claudian Dynasty. It’s a perfect example of how fact is way more interesting than fiction. Seriously, you couldn’t make this stuff up! 

All the best,
Anya Leonard

Founder and Director
Classical Wisdom 

P.S. Take a deep delve into the lives of the men and women who steered the Roman ship of state out of its republican harbor and into open, imperialistic waters with our Julio-Claudian Ebook. We cover all the five Emperors, including Suetonius’ original works. Exclusively for members, below!

---

The ‘Crimes’ of Agrippina the Younger

By Mary Naples

A regicide, a perennial poisoner, a murderer, an incestophile, a seductress, and a detestable profligate... this is what the ancient chroniclers would have us believe about Julia Agrippina the Minor, better known as Agrippina the Younger (16 CE-59 CE).  Indeed, some of her crimes were so heinous they would put a blush on the sallow cheeks of Lady Macbeth. 

But, the real question is, are the accusations true? 

Agrippina was the great-granddaughter of the Divine Caesar Augustus (63 BCE- 14 CE) and sister, wife, and mother of the three final Julio-Claudian emperors. She was the first ever living Augusta and both an empress and a co-regent in her own right. So why the mistreatment by ancient historians? Who was Agrippina the Younger and why do stories of the depths of her depravity encircle her to this day? 

A bust at the National Museum, Warsaw

We know Agrippina the Younger primarily through the myopic lenses of three ancient chroniclers: Tacitus (56 CE-120 CE), Suetonius (69 CE-122 CE), and Cassius Dio (155 CE-235 CE). These three historians wrote during the reigns of emperors who were hostile toward the Julio-Claudian clan anywhere from fifty to two hundred years after she died. 

The credibility of these three men is the question that plagues their outrageous claims about Agrippina. In addition to being deeply misogynistic, it was acceptable for historians in ancient Rome to be biased and moralistic. For example, unless they are demure and retiring, in his Annals, Tacitus—the most prolific of the three—seldom says a kind word about women and tells us that the country was transformed when Claudius married Agrippina. “Complete obedience was accorded to a woman,” he huffs.  He is also prone to reading his subject’s minds. What perception! 

Likewise, Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars –when he mentions women at all—relies on rumor for many of his narratives, seldom distinguishing word of mouth from actual facts. While equally hostile to women, Cassius Dio’s Roman History also has a pronounced bias against the Julio-Claudian clan in particular and comes to us in fragments that have been redacted from Byzantine monks in the Middle Ages. 

Besides these primary three, another source that crops up from time to time is Pliny the Elder (23 CE-79 CE) who was more or less a contemporary of Agrippina. However, his interest was in natural history as opposed to the imperial variety, so unless it is something by way of nature (breech birth, double canine teeth, etc.) he seldom writes of Agrippina. 

So, how can we know the woman who was Agrippina? Perhaps understanding some of the distortions in the narratives spun by these ancient chroniclers may enable us to see her more clearly. 

Excluded from the political arena, women were a mere ornament for the men they represented and only praiseworthy when they were dutiful and modest.  Agrippina the Younger may have been many things but humility and obedience were not among them. In fact, many Julio-Claudian women were known for exercising considerable political influence and their reputations suffered greatly at the hands of these same historians…