Agrippina the Younger

Did You Know?

• Agrippina was the namesake of her mother, Agrippina the Elder, who was remembered as a modest and heroic matron.
• She had three elder brothers: Nero Caesar, Drusus Caesar, and the future emperor Caligula.
• Her marriage to Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus was arranged by Tiberius after her thirteenth birthday in AD 28.

Reign of Caligula

When Tiberius died in March of 37, Agrippina’s only surviving brother, Caligula, took the throne. As the emperor’s sister, she gained a measure of power. Along with her sisters Julia Drusilla and Julia Livilla, she received honors like the rights of Vestal Virgins—watching public games from the upper seats—and a new coin showing Caligula on one side and his sisters on the other. Their names appeared in loyalty oaths and consular motions. Around Tiberius’s death, Agrippina was pregnant. On December 15, 37, in Antium, she gave birth to a son, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, later the emperor Nero. Her husband Domitius acknowledged the child, but when friends congratulated him, he reportedly said nothing from him and Agrippina could be good for the state or people. Caligula and his sisters faced accusations of incest. Drusilla died on June 10, 38, possibly from a fever. Afterward, Caligula showed the surviving sisters no special favor and was thought to have gone mad. In 39, Agrippina and Livilla, along with their cousin Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, plotted to kill Caligula—the Plot of the Three Daggers—aiming to make Lepidus emperor. They were also accused of being lovers. At Lepidus’s trial, Caligula denounced them as adulteresses and produced handwritten letters about the murder plan. All three were found guilty as accessories.

Reign of Claudius

Claudius lifted the exiles of Agrippina and Livilla. Livilla returned to her husband, while Agrippina was reunited with her estranged son. After her first husband's death, Agrippina made advances on the future emperor Galba, but he showed no interest, being devoted to his wife. Galba's mother-in-law publicly reprimanded and slapped Agrippina. Claudius reinstated Lucius's inheritance. Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus divorced Lucius's aunt to marry Agrippina, becoming a stepfather to Lucius. Crispus was an influential, wealthy man who served twice as consul. He soon died and left his estate to Nero. Agrippina kept a low profile and stayed away from court. Messalina considered Agrippina's son a threat and sent assassins to strangle him during his siesta, but they left after seeing a snake beneath his pillow. Agrippina had the snake skin enclosed in a bracelet that Lucius wore. In AD 47, Crispus died, and a rumor spread that Agrippina had poisoned him for his estate. Later that year, Agrippina and Lucius received greater applause at the Troy Pageant than Messalina and Britannicus, and many people began to show sympathy for Agrippina.

Reign of Nero

After Nero became emperor, Agrippina was made a priestess in the cult of the deified Claudius. She tried to use Nero’s youth to share in ruling Rome, enjoying privileges like watching senate meetings from behind a curtain and appearing alongside him on coins and statues. According to Tacitus, she aimed for a diarchy, once demanding that the Praetorian Guard swear loyalty to her. She also attempted to join Nero’s meeting with Armenian ambassadors, but Seneca and Burrus convinced Nero to block her. During Nero’s first year, his affair with the freedwoman Claudia Acte angered Agrippina, who scolded him harshly. She then began supporting Britannicus, possibly to threaten Nero’s position. In February AD 55, Nero had Britannicus secretly poisoned at his own banquet, starting a power struggle with his mother. From AD 56 to 58, Agrippina grew watchful and critical. In AD 56, Nero forced her out of the palace to live in the imperial residence. He gradually stripped her of honors and power, removed her Roman and German bodyguards, and threatened to abdicate and move to Rhodes. Pallas was also dismissed from court. With Seneca and Burrus opposing her, Agrippina’s authority shrank, and by mid AD 56 she was excluded from daily governance.

Legacy and cultural references

Agrippina the Younger wrote memoirs about her life and her family’s troubles, which the historian Tacitus later used for his Annals, though the memoirs themselves are lost. Tacitus specifically mentions them in Annals 4.53 as a key source for the life and death of her father Germanicus, indicating the work contained both personal and political details about the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Her decision to write such a record, unusual for a Roman woman, shows she was politically aware and wanted to control how she would be remembered. Without these memoirs, historians lack a female perspective on the inner workings of the imperial court. She appears in later works like the Roman tragedy Octavia, Daniel Casper von Lohenstein’s 1665 play Agrippina: Trauerspiel, Handel’s 1709 opera Agrippina, and Robert Graves’s novel Claudius the God. Agrippina is credited as the founder of Cologne, where her legacy is represented by the robe on the virgin of the city’s triumvirate. On screen, she has been played by Gloria Swanson in Mio Figlio Nerone (1956), Teressa Liane in the Netflix series Roman Empire (2016), and in the 1911 Italian film Agrippina, among other portrayals.