Agrippina the younger

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Agrippina the Younger; Bust in the Württemberg State Museum , marble, 40.5 cm, 50s AD

Iulia Agrippina (born November 6, 15 or 16 AD in Oppidum Ubiorum, today Cologne , † 59 in Campania ), often called Agrippina the Younger (Latin: Agrippina minor ) to distinguish it from her mother , was a daughter of Germanicus and of the older Agrippina , and thus members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty . She was the mother of Nero and wife of the emperor Claudius .

Life

Agrippina was born in the oppidum Ubiorum , named after the Ubiern who settled there , on the site of what would later become Cologne , when her father Germanicus was commander in chief of the legions fighting in Germania. Nothing more is known about her early youth. Her first marriage was from 28 AD to Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus , with whom she had their only son in 37 AD, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus , who later became Nero. After her brother Caligula had them venerated like goddesses together with the two sisters Drusilla and Iulia Livilla at the beginning of his rule, after Drusilla's death he suspected the other two sisters of having conspired against him together with their brother-in-law Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and sent them Agrippina was exiled to the rocky island of Pontia in AD 39 , from which she was able to return after his assassination in AD 41. Her first husband had died of illness as early as 40 AD when his son was two years old. After her return she married Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus for the second time , who (after 44, before 48) probably passed away in AD 47; According to Suetonius , he was killed by Agrippina's trick.

In 49 AD Agrippina married her uncle Claudius and became his fourth wife, for which a law had to be changed that forbade marriage between uncle and niece. As a result, she managed to strengthen her position at court and weaken that of her opponents. She tried to secure the succession to the throne for her son Lucius from his first marriage, although Claudius himself had a son, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Germanicus or Britannicus from his marriage to Valeria Messalina . In February 50 AD Claudius adopted the 12-year-old Lucius, who now stood next to or in front of his younger stepbrother as Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar , and gave his wife Agrippina the title of Augusta . She was the first Roman Empress to be awarded this title during her lifetime, and at the same time had full minting rights. Therefore Agrippina could be represented on imperial coins without naming or portraying the princeps. Her power at this time is also evident in the founding of the Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium named after her in 50 AD, with which the settlement at her place of birth was elevated from the oppidum to a Colonia civium Romanorum , whose inhabitants, initially mostly veterans, had Roman citizenship had.

Nero was declared adult at the age of 14 and made senator and proconsul, and married at 16. His first wife was 13-year-old Claudia Octavia , daughter of Claudius and sister of Britannicus, in AD 53 . Since her stepbrother Nero had officially become her brother through adoption, whom she was not allowed to marry under Roman law, Claudia had previously been made into an Octavian pro forma through adoption. Octavia became empress the following year when her father Claudius died in A.D. 54 and her husband was proclaimed emperor as his son.

Agrippina with Nero on an aureus

According to Tacitus , Agrippina had her husband poisoned with the help of the poisoner Lucusta to clear the way for her son Nero. At first she had obviously hoped to be able to seize power after the death of Claudius, as a coin with the inscription "Agrippina Augusta, wife of the deified Claudius, mother of Nero Caesar" suggests. Agrippina was also represented as the goddess of luck ( Fortuna ). In the first few years she still exerted a strong influence on Nero's government work, which she increasingly lost in the following years. In 59 AD, Nero finally had his mother murdered. This act was still associated with the so-called Caesar madness at the beginning of the 20th century . There are now other perspectives as well.

As with most members of the Julio-Claudian sex , Agrippina's image is shaped by the representations in the ancient sources (especially Tacitus and Suetonius), which hardly allow an objective assessment. According to Tacitus, she consulted the memoirs she wrote in his Annales .

Afterlife

The Roman robe of the Cologne Virgin (left) symbolizes Agrippina
Figure of Agrippina on the tower of Cologne City Hall

Agrippina is considered to be the founder of Cologne and is still symbolized there today by the robe of the virgin of the Cologne triumvirate . In the sculpture program of the Cologne town hall tower , a figure by Heribert Calleen was dedicated to Agrippina on the ground floor .

Georg Friedrich Handel probably composed the opera Agrippina on the basis of a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani in 1708/1709 , which premiered on December 26, 1709 in the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice .

Representations

  • Bust of Agrippina the Younger, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

  • Statue of Agrippina the Younger, found in 1885, made of basanite

  • Bust of Agrippina the Younger in the Roman-Germanic Museum, Cologne

  • Marble bust of Agrippina the Younger, from the city of Augusta Emerita , today Mérida , around the second half of the first century

  • Marble bust of Agrippina the Younger, Archaeological Museum of Istria , Pula

literature

Web links

Commons : Agrippina Minor  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Agrippina the Younger  - Quotes

Remarks

  1. ↑ The entry for the year 16 in the fasti Antiates ministrorum ( CIL 10, 06638 ) documents the birthday on November 6th, as do the entries in the files of the Arval brothers for the years 57/58; see Victor Ehrenberg , AHM Jones (ed.): Documents Illustrating the Reigns of August and Tiberius. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1955, p. 54. Since no year of birth can be determined from this, the year of birth since Theodor Mommsen is : The Germanicus family . In: Hermes 13, 1878, pp. 245–265, here: pp. 252–262, usually dated to the year 15; a birth not until the year 16 and a change in the order of siblings suggested: John H. Humphrey : The Three Daughters of Agrippina Maior. In: American Journal of Ancient History. Volume 4, 1979, pp. 125-143; after weighing Humphrey's arguments, Anthony A. Barrett holds: Agrippina, Mother of Nero. Batsford, London 1996, pp. 269–271, stipulates the year of birth 15, but points out the associated uncertainty; Werner Eck : Agrippina, the city founder of Cologne. A woman in early imperial politics. Greven, Köln 1993, p. 8 considers the year 15 to be likely without excluding the year 16, p. 10 he writes “15/16”.
  2. ↑ Suetonius: Vita Passieni Crispi ( English translation ).
  3. ↑ Tacitus , Annales 12: 26-27.
  4. ↑ Hildegard Temporini-Countess Vitzthum : The Empresses of Rome. From Livia to Theodora , Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-49513-3 , pp. 151-155.
  5. ↑ Agrippina as the goddess of happiness . Small writings from the Roman-Germanic Museum Cologne, August 2011.
  6. ↑ Tacitus, Annales 4,53.
  7. ↑ The Cologne triumvirate .
  8. ↑ stadt-koeln.de: Sculptures on the first floor , accessed on January 15, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Agrippina the younger
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Julia Agrippina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman, mother of Nero
DATE OF BIRTH November 6th 15 or November 6th 16
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH 59
Place of death Campania