Author Description

Agrippina - The Mother of Nero from The Women of The Caesars by Guglielmo Ferrero.......Vipsania Agrippina, most commonly known as Agrippina Major or Agrippina the Elder, 14 BC - 17 October AD 33, was a distinguished and prominent Roman woman of the first century. Agrippina was the wife of the general and statesman Germanicus and a relative to the first Roman Emperors....She was the second granddaughter of the Emperor Augustus, sister-in-law, stepdaughter and daughter-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, mother of the Emperor Caligula, maternal second cousin and sister-in-law of the Emperor Claudius and the maternal grandmother of the Emperor Nero....Agrippina attempted to revive the aristocratic traditions of government which had inspired the policies of Augustus and Tiberius. Not only did she attempt to do this, but, strange as it may seem, she succeeded almost without a struggle. The government of Agrippina was from the first a great success. From the moment when she became empress there is discernible in the entire administration a greater firmness and consistency of policy. Claudius no longer seems, as formerly, to be at the mercy of his freedmen and the fleeting impulses of the moment, and even the dark shadows of the time are lighted up for some years.