Agrippina: The Most Extraordinary Woman of the Roman World

by Emma Southon

Roman men could not even imagine a scenario in which a man and a woman have similar aims and a platonic relationship.

The latter are by far the more stable, prosperous and pleasant for the whole of Rome.

The Agrippina years, in contrast, are characterised by a complete lack of political agitation, no significant coup attempts and a good, strong, productive relationship between Claudius and the Senate.

So she took that power as it came to her and then, mostly, used it to ensure that Rome was a stable state with a strong emperor, a peaceful empire and that everyone was generally pretty happy.

The ease with which the Senate and people’s council agreed to allow Nero to be adopted is probably a testament to the strength of Agrippina and Nero’s popularity and the general goodwill felt towards them.

ban on men who were still considered young enough to get laid from adopting sons.

she was given the title Augusta.

made her the most powerful woman the Western world had ever seen.

It said that the king had a queen who was of equal standing.

The emperor was just a man doing a job.

Agrippina sitting by his side in the palace atrium, receiving the same deference in a masculine realm.

she founded her own city in the place of her birth.

Unlike any Roman woman before her she held true power, not influence.

As Augusta, the empress, sitting next to her husband and founding cities, she was infiltrating spaces never before allowed to a woman, but the door remained half-closed to her.

In part this seems to be because people liked Agrippina and liked the things she did.

Agrippina had a natural talent for finding things that were good for her, and good for everyone else and this was the key to her glory years.

I like to imagine her bursting with pride and maybe relief as he comes out, finally a man.

overwhelming monument to Augustus’s abilities as a propagandist.

Agrippina is intertwined with Nero, taking precedence over her husband, which is a staggering thing to say in a world that considered women to be walking, untrustworthy uteruses and when her husband was the emperor.

As a sight, this was unique. No woman had ever sat in state before to receive a foreigner in any official capacity, or would again for a very long time.

No wonder he let Agrippina get involved; she probably broke up the tedium.

A freedman walking about wearing a gold ring was like a woman wearing a toga, or a donkey talking: just laughably incorrect.

And then this woman appeared, this young, beautiful, formerly disgraced woman, and took his special powers away from him.

If there was anyone Britannicus probably didn’t want on his team, it was Narcissus.

The idea that Narcissus would start fighting for the rights of a nine-year-old out of the goodness of his heart and strong desire for biological justice is even funnier.

they were special, better than anyone else and if anyone touched them there would be some serious trouble.

I have long suspected that this experience is one of the reasons he got so bored with being emperor in his twenties.

Having Nero stand up in front of the Senate and give a speech advocating for Ilium was a pretty clear reminder that Nero was descended from ancient gods and heroes as well as modern ones, and had a near divine right to be emperor.

But Claudius’s reign had not been stable;

Apparently Agrippina’s reputation was so poor by Dio’s time, almost 200 years after she died, that he believes her capable of either raising bread prices in Rome for personal gain or coordinating with the Roman plebeians to get them to riot.

officially pretend that there’s no such thing as a succession plan and also he really thinks this child should be given more leadership opportunities,

it was a reminder that the empire endured and everything continued as normal when Claudius was not around.

in Roman law, marrying an adoptive sibling was considered to be incest.

the depths of his torment are unimaginable.

unshakable loyalty to Germanicus’s daughter.

I don’t think that ascribing this peaceful and conciliatory approach to her is a huge leap.

It also suggests that she had the charm and diplomacy, and straight-up power, to get these deals done without anyone getting upset.

She was 14 when she married the 16-year-old Nero and he hated her as much as she hated him.

Vitellius was extremely old and doing very well for himself.

In return, Junius Lupus was exiled.

Claudius was too weak and pathetic to put a proper stop to her plans.

the exact kind of financial management that Augustus did during the civil wars.

out of character, no matter how nice the garden was.

Here’s how it worked when it was successful. Agrippina

So it was incredibly impressive that she was able to build such a strong network of support

mooned the celebrating Jews in the Temple. And then farted.

Roman soldier burned a copy of the Torah in retaliation.

Josephus claims that Claudius wouldn’t have even bothered to hear the Jewish side if Agrippina hadn’t intervened and insisted.

I could make a case that Agrippina was advising his rule in Judea and that her death meant he had to start handling things on his own and fucked up. I

A Greek man’s cloak. Made of gold.