This picture of Agrippina the Elder is an image of a woman old beyond her years, tired by the constant fight that is Roman politics, exhausted by being a Roman woman in public, lonely and pitiful. This is not a common image of her. She is presented almost exclusively as an arrogant lioness, roaring at the slightest provocation. This was Agrippina the Younger’s attempt to humanise her mother and perhaps even herself.
