Agrippina the Younger
Agrippina II., or Agrippina Augusta, a daughter
of the preceding, and'mother of the emperor Nero
by her first husband, Domitius. She was a woman of
abandoned principles and remorseless cruelty. She
married her father's brother, the emperor Claudius, and
afterwards poisoned him. After a life of almost uninterrupted
crime, she was put to death (a.d. 60) by the
order of her son Nero.
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Julia Agrippina, most commonly referred to as Agrippina Minor or Agrippina the Younger or Agrippinilla (Little
Agrippina) and after 50 known as Julia Augusta Agrippina (Minor Latin for the ‘younger’, Classical Latin:
IVLIA•AGRIPPINA; IVLIA•AVGVSTA•AGRIPPINA[1], 7 November 15 or 6 November 16[2] – 19/23 March 59) was a Roman Empress
and one of the more prominent women in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was a great-granddaughter of the Emperor
Augustus, great-niece and adoptive granddaughter of the Emperor Tiberius, sister of the Emperor Caligula, niece and
fourth wife of the Emperor Claudius, and mother of the Emperor Nero.
Agrippina the Younger has been described by both the ancient and modern sources as ‘ruthless, ambitious, violent and
domineering’. She was a beautiful and reputable woman and according to Pliny the Elder, she had a double canine in her
upper right jaw, a sign of good fortune. Many ancient historians accuse Agrippina of poisoning Emperor Claudius, though
accounts vary...
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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.
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