Agrippina

Agrippīna, ae, f., the name of several Roman women.

• I The wife of the emperor Tiberius, granddaughter of Atticus, Suet. Tib. 7.—
• II A daughter of Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia, granddaughter of Augustus, wife of Germanicus, and mother of the emperor Caligula, Tac. A. 2, 54.—
• III Daughter of the preced. and Germanicus, wife of Cn. Domitius Aënobarbus, and mother of the emperor Nero, Tac. A. 4, 75. From her a colony planted on the Rhine received the name Colonia Agrippina, Tac. A. 12, 27, or Agrippinensis, id. H. 1, 57; 4, 55 (now Cologne); and its inhabitants were called Agrippinenses, id. G. 28.

Agrippīna, ae, f., weiblicher Name in der Familie Agrippa, unter dem bekannt sind: I) Tochter des M. Vipsanius Agrippa: a) von der Pomponia (s. Agrippa no. I, B), Gemahlin des Tiberius, Suet. Tib. 7, 2. – b) von der Julia, die sittsame u. treue Gemahlin des Germanikus, Mutter des Kaligula, nach ihres Gatten Tode nach der Insel Pantadaria verbannt (30 n. Chr.), wo sie den Hungertod starb (33 n. Chr.), Tac. ann. 1, 33. Suet. Cal. 7. – II) Enkelin des M. Vips. Agrippa, Tochter des Germanikus u. der Agrippina (no. I, b), Gemahlin des Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, dann des Krispus Passienus, zuletzt ihres Oheims, des Kaisers Klaudius, aus der ersten Ehe Mutter des L. Domitius, des nachmaligen Kaisers Nero, von ihrer edlen Mutter gew. als »jüngere« Agrippina unterschieden, eine der schrecklichsten Frauengestalten der Geschichte, auf Geheiß des eigenen Sohnes, der ihre Rachepläne fürchtete, ermordet (60 n. Chr.), Suet. Claud. 26 sqq.; Ner. 6 sqq. Tac. ann. 4, 75; 12, 64 sqq.; 13, 1 sqq.; 14, 1 sqq. – Auf ihre Anregung wurde die Hauptstadt der Ubier (oppidum Ubiorum), ihr Geburtsort, im J. 50 n. Chr. kolonisiert (s. Tac. ann. 13, 27), u. dah. Colōnia Agrippīnēnsis (Tac. hist. 1, 57; 4, 56 u. 63. Suet. Vit. 10, 3) od. Colōnia Claudia Augusta Agrippīnēnsium (Inscr.) od. geradezu bl. Agrippīna (Aur. Vict. Caes. 33, 12. Amm. 15, 8, 19) gen., Hauptstadt Niedergermaniens, j. »Köln« am Rhein; deren Einw. Agrippīnēnsēs, ium, m., die Agrippinenser, Tac. hist. 1, 57 u.ö.

Agrippīna, (9) æ, f. , Agrippine : ¶ 1 femme de Germanicus : Tac. Ann. 2, 54 ¶ 2 femme de lʼempereur Tibère : Suet. Tib. 7 ¶ 3 fille de Germanicus et mère de Néron : Tac. Ann. 4, 75.

Agrippi'na I.

1. the youngest daughter of M. Vipsanius Agrippa and of Julia, the daughter of Augustus, was born some time before B. C. 12. She married Caesar Germanicus, the son of Drusus Nero Germanicus, by whom she had nine children. Agrippina was gifted with great powers of mind, a noble character, and all the moral and physical qualities that constituted the model of a Roman matron : her love for her husband was sincere and lasting, her chastity was spotless, her fertility was a virtue in the eyes of the Romans, and her attachment to her children was an eminent feature of her character. She yielded to one dangerous passion, ambition. Augustus shewed her particular attention and attachment. (Sueton. Calig. 8.)

At the death of Augustus in A. D. 14, she was on the Lower Rhine with Germanicus, who com manded the legions there. Her husband was the idol of the army, and the legions on the Rhine, dissatisfied with the accession of Tiberius, manifested their intention of proclaiming Germanicus master of the state. Tiberius hated and dreaded Germanicus, and he shewed as much antipathy to Agrippina, as he had love to her elder sister, his first wife. In this perilous situation, Germanicus and Agrippina saved themselves by their prompt energy; he quelled the outbreak and pursued the war against the Germans. In the ensuing year his lieutenant Caecina, after having made an invasion into Germany, returned to the Rhine. The campaign was not inglorious for the Romans, but they were worn out by hardships, and perhaps harassed on their march by some bands of Germans. Thus the rumour was spread that the main body of the Germans was approaching to invade Gaul. Germanicus was absent, and it was proposed to destroy the bridge over the Rhine. (Comp. Strab. iv. p.194.) If this had been done, the retreat of Caecina's army would have been cut off, but it was saved by the firm opposition of Agrippina to such a cowardly measure. When the troops approached, she went to the bridge, acting as a general, and receiving the soldiers as they crossed it; the wounded among them were presented by her with clothes, and they received from her own hands everything necessary for the cure of their wounds. (Tac. Ann. 1.69.) Germanicus having been recalled by Tiberius, she accompanied her husband to Asia (A. D. 17), and after his death, or rather murder [Germanicus], she returned to Italy. She stayed some days at the island of Corcyra to recover from her grief, and then landed at Brundusium, accompanied by two of her children, and holding in her arms the urn with the ashes of her husband. At the news of her arrival, the port, the walls, and even the roofs of the houses were occupied by crowds of people who were anxious to see and salute her. She was solemnly received by the officers of two Praetorian cohorts, which Tiberius had sent to Brundusium for the purpose of accompanying her to Rome; the urn containing the ashes of Germanicus was borne by tribunes and centurions, and the funeral procession was received on its march by the magistrates of Calabria, Apulia, and Campania ; by Drusus, the son of Tiberius; Claudius, the brother of Germanicus; by the other childre of Germanicus; and at last, in the environs of Rome, by the consuls, the senate, and crowds of the Roman people. (Tac. Ann. iii, 1, &c.)

During some years Tiberius disguised his hatred of Agrippina; but she soon became exposed to secret accusations and intrigues. She asked the emperor's permission to choose another husband, but Tiberius neither refused nor consented to the proposition. Sejanus, who exercised an unbounded influence over Tiberius, then a prey to mental disorders, persuaded Agrippina that time emperor intended to poison her. Alarmed at such a report, she refused to eat an apple which the emperor offered her from his table, and Tiberius in his turn complained of Agrippina regarding him as a poisoner. According to Suetonius. all this was an intrigue preconcerted between the emperor and Sejanus, who, as it seems, had formed the plan of leading Agrippina into false steps. Tiberius was extremely suspicious of Agrippina, and shewed his hostile feelings by allusive words, or neglectful silence. There were no evidences of ambitious plans formed by Agrippina, but the rumour having been spread that she would fly to the army, he banished her to the island of Pandataria (A. D. 30) where her mother Julia had died in exile. Her sons Nero and Drusus were likewise banished and both died an unnatural death. She lived three years on that barren island; at last she refused to take any food, and died most probably by voluntary starvation. Her death took place precisely two years after and on the same date as the murder of Sejanus, that is in A. D. 33. Tacitus and Suetonius tell us, that Tiberius boasted that he had not strangled her. (Sueton. Tib. 53; Tac. Ann. 6.25.) The ashes of Agrippina and those of her son Nero were afterwards brought to Rome by order of her son, the emperor Caligula, who struck various medals in honour of his mother. In the one figured below, the head of Caligula is on one side and that of his mother on the other. The words on each side are respectively, C. CAESAR. AVG. GER. P.M. TR. POT., and AGRIPPINA. MAT. C. CAES. AVG. GERM.

(Tac. Ann. i.--vi.; Sueton. Octav. 64, Tib.. l.c., Calig. l.c.; Dion. Cass. 57.5, 6, 58.22.) [W.P]

Agrippi'na Ii.

2. the daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina the elder, daughter of M. Vipsanius Agrippa. She was born between A. D. 13 and 17, at the Oppidum Ubiorum, afterwards called in honour of her Colonia Agrippina, now Cologne, land then the head-quarters of the legions commanded by her father. In A. D. 28, she married Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, a man not unlike her, and whom she lost in A. D. 40. After his death she married Crispus Passienus, who died some years afterwards; and she was accused of having poisoned him, either for the purpose of obtaining his great fortune, or for some secret motive of much higher importance. She was already known for her scandalous conduct, for her most perfidious intrigues, and for an unbounded ambition. She was accused of having committed incest with her own brother, the emperor Caius Caligula, who under the pretext of having discovered that she had lived in an adulterous intercourse with M. Aemilius Lepidus, the husband of her sister Drusilla, banished her to the island of Pontia, which was situated opposite the bay of Caieta, off the coast of Italy. Her sister Drusilla was likewise banished to Pontia, and it seems that their exile was connected with the punishment of Lepidus, who was put to death for having conspired against the emperor. Previously to her exile, Agrippina was compelled by her brother to carry to Rome the ashes of Lepidus. This happened in A. D. 39. Agrippina and her sister were released in A. D. 41, by their uncle, Claudius, immediately after his accession, although his wife, Messalina, was the mortal enemy of Agrippina. Messalina was put to death by order of Claudius in A. D. 48; and in the following year, A. D. 49, Agrippina succeeded in marrying the emperor. Claudius was her uncle, but her marriage was legalized by a senatuseonsultum, by which the marriage of a man with his brother's daughter was declared valid; this senatusconsultum was afterwards abrogated by the emperors Constantine and Constaus. In this intrigue Agrippina displayed the qualities of an accomplished courtezan, and such was the influence of her charms and superior talents over the old emperor, that, in perejudice of his own son, Britannicus, he adopted Domitius, the son of Agrippina by her first husband, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus. (A. D. 51.) Agrippina was assisted in her secret plans by Pallas, the perfidious confidant of Claudius. By her intrigues, L. Junius Silanus, the husband of Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, was put to death, and in A. D. 53, Octavia was married to young Nero. Lollia Paullina, once the rival of Agrippina for the hand of the emperor, was accused of high treason and condemned to death; but she put an end to her own life. Domitia Lepida, the sister of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, met with a similar fate. After having thus removed those whose rivalship she dreaded, or whose virtues she envied, Agrippina resolved to get rid of her husband, and to govern the empire through her ascendency over her son Nero, his successor. A vague rumour of this reached the emperor; in a state of drunkenness, he forgot prudence, and talked about punishing his ambitious wife. Having no time to lose, Agrippina, assisted by Locusta and Xenophon, a Greek physician, poisoned the old emperor, in A. D. 54, at Sinuessa, a watering-place to which he had retired for the sake of his health. Nero was proclaimed emperor, and presented to the troops by Burrus, whom Agrippina had appointed praefectus praetorio. Narcissus, the rich freedman of Claudius, M. Junius Silanus, proconsul of Asia, the brother of L. Junius Silanus, and a great-grandson of Augustus, lost their lives at the instigation of Agrippina, who would have augmented the number of her victims, but for the opposition of Burrus and Seneca, recalled by Agrippina from his exile to conduct the education of Nero. Meanwhile, the young emperor took some steps to shake off the insupportable ascendency of his mother. The jealousy of Agrippina rose from her son's passion for Acte, and, after her, for Poppaea Sabina, the wife of M. Salvius Otho. To reconquer his affection, Agrippina employed, but in vain, most daring and most revolting means. She threatened to oppose Britannicus as a rival to the emperor ; but Britaniiieus was poisoned by Nero; and she even solicited her son to an incestuous intercourse. At last, her death was resolved upon by Nero, who wished to repudiate Octavia and marry Poppaea, but whose plan was thwarted by his mother. Thus petty feminine intrigues became the cause of Agrippina's ruin. Nero invited her under the pretext of a reconciliation to visit him at Baiae, on the coast of Campania. She went thither by sea. In their conversation hypocrisy was displayed on both sides. She left Baiae by the same way; but the vessel was so contrived, that it was to break to pieces when out at sea. It only partly broke, and Agrippina saved herself by swimming to the shore ; her attendant Acerronia was killed. Agrippina fled to her villa near the Lucrine lake, and informed her son of her happy escape. Now, Nero charged Burrus to murder his mother; but Burrus declining it, Anicetus, the commander of the fleet, who had invented the stratagem of the ship, was compelled by Nero and Burrus to undertake the task. Anicetus went to her villa with a chosen band, and his men surprised her in her bedroom. "Ventrem feri" she cried out, after she was but slightly wounded, and immediately afterwards expired under the blows of a centurion. (A. D. 60.) (Tac. Ann. 14.8.) It was told, that Nero went to the villa, and that he admired the beauty of the dead body of his mother: this was believed by some, doubted by others. (14.9.) Agrippina left commentaries concerning her history and that of her family, which Tacitus consulted, according to his own statement. (Ib. 4.54; comp. Plin. Hist. Nat. 7.6. s. 8, Elenchus, vii. &c.)

There are several medals of Agrippina, which are distinguishable from those of her mother by the title of Augusta, which those of her mother never have. On some of her medals she is represented with her husband Claudius, in others with her son Nero. The former is the case in the one annexed. The words on each side are respectively, AGRIPPINAE AVGVSTAE, and TI. CLAVD. CAESAR. AVG. GERM. P.M. TRIB. POT. P.P.

(Tac. Ann. lib.xii. xiii. xiv.; Dio Cass. lib. lix.--xi.; Sueton. Claud. 43, 44, Nero, 5, 6.) [W.P]

Agrippīna

(1) The daughter of M. Vipsanius Agrippa (q.v.) and of Iulia, the infamous daughter of the emperor Augustus, and married to Germanicus (q.v.), by whom she had nine children, among whom were the emperor Caligula, and Agrippina, the mother of Nero. She was distinguished for her virtues and heroism, and shared all the dangers of her husband's campaigns. On his death, in A.D. 17, she returned to Italy; but the favour with which she was received by the people increased the hatred which Tiberius and his mother, Livia, had long entertained towards her. At length, in A.D. 30, Tiberius banished her to the island of Paudataria, where she died three years afterwards. See the portrait on p. 729.

(2) Daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina (supra), and mother of the emperor Nero, was born at Oppidum Ubiorum, afterwards called, in honour of her, Colonia Agrippina, now Cologne. She was beautiful and intelligent, but licentious, cruel, and ambitious. She was first married to Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus (A.D. 28), by whom she had a son, afterwards the emperor Nero; next to Crispus Passienus; and thirdly to the emperor Claudius (A.D. 49), although she was his niece. In A.D. 50 she prevailed upon Claudius to adopt her son, to the prejudice of his own son Britannicus; and, in order to secure the succession for Nero, she poisoned the emperor in A.D. 54. The young emperor soon became tired of the ascendency of his mother, and, after making several attempts to shake off her authority, he caused her to be assassinated in A.D. 59.