In Imperial Rome, women could never formally hold power because Roman law didn’t give legal rights to women. So an ambitious woman had to find other means for gaining power. Agrippina used sex, lies, and murder to get what she wanted.
Agrippina
Agrippina (Agrippina II or Younger to distinguish her from her mother, Agrippina) was a granddaughter of Emperor Augustus and a sister to Emperor Gaius Caesar (Caligula). Caligula was a serial killer who was so erratically unstable the Praetorian Guard murdered him in self-defense.
The Guard chose Claudius as the next emperor because he was the least offensive member of Augustus’ family. But Claudius was susceptible to predatory gold-diggers. His wife, Messalina, was a vain, shallowly clever woman who apparently was willing to sleep with any man who told her she was beautiful. Her indiscretions soon gave Agrippina the opening she wanted.
Claudius
Agrippina convinced two of Claudius’s closest advisors, Narcissus and Pallas, to help her instigate adultery and conspiracy charges against Messalina. Agrippina apparently persuaded Pallas by committing adultery with him. The men easily convinced Claudius that Messalina was a cheap tramp who was conspiring with her lovers against Claudius. In a fit of rage, Claudius ordered Messalina brought to him so that she could be accused in person.
To avoid any unnecessary hitches, like having Messalina successfully beg for her life, Narcissus sent a hit squad to execute her. That left Narcissus and Pallas looking for a replacement wife for Claudius. Agrippina maneuvered to be the next wife on the grounds that she had a son who could become heir to Claudius.
This claim conveniently ignored the fact that Claudius and Messalina had a daughter, Octavia, and a son, Britannicus. So Agrippina proposed her teen-aged son as a spare heir in case anything happened to Britannicus who was a child. (If this were a Netflix series, you’d be hearing ominous music.)
Agrippina crowns Nero
Agrippina had another problem, though. Claudius was her uncle and their marriage would violate Roman law prohibiting incest. That was a mere speed bump for Agrippina. She conspired with an ambitious government officer to convince the Senate to change the incest law.
After that legal fix, she married Claudius. She immediately abandoned her kindly stepmother act and replaced Britannicus’ tutors and servants with handlers loyal to her. She also ensured the demise of Octavia’s fiancé, freeing Octavia to marry her son. With the domestic household under her thumb, Agrippina set her sights on others.
Tacitus book
Lollia Paulina was fabulously wealthy which had made her an attractive wife-candidate to Claudius until Agrippina changed his mind. Now Agrippina connived to have Lollia Paulina charged with sorcery and sent an assassin to convince Lollia Paulina to commit suicide. On another occasion, Agrippina intimidated a wealthy man into committing suicide because she envied his beautiful garden.
When she wasn’t conspiring to murder people, Agrippina was busy promoting her son as the next emperor. She connived to have her son appointed to a consulship even though he was too young for such a position. That put him in the pole position to be the heir to the throne. To underscore the point, Agrippina gave gifts to the troops and staged games in her son’s name.
But for all Agrippina’s intrigues, she could never feel safe because Roman women lived at the whim of their fathers, husbands, and sons. She learned that Claudius had drunkenly said at a banquet that his destiny was first to endure his wives’ misdeeds, then to punish them. That scared Agrippina so much she decided to strike first.
Nero
She researched poisons that could make Claudius’ death appear to be from natural causes. Legend says she put the poison on a mushroom which Claudius ate. When he dropped dead in agony, she had his body wrapped in robes and dumped in his bedroom. After placing Octavia and Britannicus under house arrest, she summoned the Senate and priests to pray for Claudius.
For several days she provided false updates on Claudius’ health. Then one morning she appeared with the guard commander to declare that her son was the new emperor. His name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus but we know him as Nero. Nero was even crazier than mommy dearest. One of his first victims was Britannicus. Nero later sent assassins to kill his mother after his paranoia convinced him that she was trying to kill him.
Suetonius book
This account of Agrippina comes from The Annals of Imperial Rome, by the historian Tacitus. If you want the gossipy, tabloid version, I recommend The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius or the PBS Masterpiece Theatre series, I, Claudius, starring Derek Jacobi.
If you’d like my blogs sent directly to your inbox, simply click here and sign up today! And we’ll see you next week!