Agrippina the Younger

Agrippina’s son Drusus Caesar, imprisoned in Rome, dies of starvation; his brother Nero Caesar either commits suicide soon after the trial or starves to death on Pandataria.

Sejanus holds the consulship with Tiberius in absentia in 31, receives the long-sought permission from Tiberius to marry Drusus’s widow Livilla and begins his play for power in earnest.

In the same year, the Emperor receives evidence from Antonia Minor, his sister-in-law, that Sejanus plans to overthrow him.

Precisely what happened is difficult to determine, but Sejanus seems to have covertly attempted to court those families who were tied to the Julians, and attempted to ingratiate himself with the Julian family line with an eye towards placing himself, as an adopted Julian, in the position of Princeps, or as a possible regent.

Livilla is later implicated in this plot, and is revealed to have been Sejanus's lover for a number of years, possibly even before the birth of the twins, who some (including Tiberius) suspect Sejanus to have fathered.

The plot seems to have involved the two of them overthrowing Tiberius, with the support of the Julians, and either assuming the Principate themselves, or serving as regent to the young Tiberius Gemellus or possibly even Gaius Caligula.

Those who stand in his way are tried for treason and swiftly dealt with.

Sejanus is summoned in early October to a meeting of the Senate, where a letter from Tiberius is read condemning Sejanus and ordering his immediate execution.

Sejanus is tried, dragged off to prison,and he and several of his colleagues are executed within the week.

As commander of the Praetorian Guard, he is replaced by Naevius Sutorius Macro, who, according to Tacitus, had been active in discrediting Sejanus and in directing the subsequent purge against his family and followers, with most of Sejanus' family (including his children) and followers sharing his fate.

Sejanus' former wife Apicata, on hearing of the death of her children, addresses a letter to Tiberius, accusing Sejanus and Livilla of having poisoned Drusus; she then commits suicide.

Drusus' cupbearer Lygdus and Livilla's physician Eudemus are questioned and under torture confirm Apicata's accusation.

Livilla dies shortly afterwards, either being killed or by suicide.

According to Cassius Dio, Tiberius handed Livilla over to her mother, Antonia Minor, who locked her up in a room and starved her to death.

Tacitus claims that more treason trials followed and that whereas Tiberius had been hesitant to act at the outset of his reign, now, towards the end of his life, he seemed to do so without compunction.

Hardest hit were those families with political ties to the Julians.

Even the imperial magistracy was hit, as any and all who had associated with Sejanus or could in some way be tied to his schemes were summarily tried and executed, their properties seized by the state (in a similar way, in the few years after Valeria Messalina's death, Agrippina the Younger removed anyone she considered loyal to Messalina's memory, much in the same way that Sejanus's followers were executed).

Several modern historians have challenged Tacitus' portrayal of a tyrannical, vengeful emperor.

The prominent ancient historian Edward Togo Salmon notes: "In the whole twenty two years of Tiberius' reign, not more than fifty-two persons were accused of treason, of whom almost half escaped conviction, while the four innocent people to be condemned fell victims to the excessive zeal of the Senate, not to the Emperor's tyranny".

(A history of the Roman world from 30 B.C.

to A.D. 138 (1944; rev.

ed.

1963, 1968; p. 183) One of the few surviving sources contemporary with the rule of Tiberius comes from Velleius Paterculus, who served under Tiberius for eight years (from CE 4) in Germany and Pannonia as praefect of cavalry and legatus.

Paterculus' Compendium of Roman History spans a period from the fall of Troy to the death of Livia in CE 29.

His text on Tiberius lavishes praise on both the emperor and Sejanus.

How much of this is due to genuine admiration or prudence remains an open question, but it has been conjectured that he was put to death in CE 31 as a friend of Sejanus.

Rumors abound as to what exactly he Tiberius us doing in Capri.

Suetonius records lurid tales of sexual perversity and cruelty, and most of all his paranoia.

While heavily sensationalized, Suetonius' stories at least paint a picture of how Tiberius was perceived by the Roman people, and what his impact on the Principate was during his twenty-three years of rule.

Gaius Caesar, as a boy of just two or three, had accompanied his father, Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Tiberius, on campaigns in the north of Germania.

The soldiers, amused that Gaius was dressed in a miniature soldier's uniform, including boots and armor, soon gave Gaius his nickname Caligula, meaning "little (soldier's) boot" in Latin, after the small boots he wore as part of his uniform.

Gaius, though, reportedly grew to dislike this nickname.

Suetonius claims that Germanicus was poisoned in Syria by an agent of Tiberius, who viewed Germanicus as a political rival.

After the death of his father, Caligula lived with his mother until her relations with Tiberius deteriorated.After the banishment of Agrippina and Caligula's brother, Nero, when adolescent Caligula had been sent to live first with his great-grandmother (and Tiberius's mother) Livia.

Following Livia's death, he had been sent to live with his grandmother Antonia.

Suetonius writes that after the banishment of his mother and brothers, Caligula and his sisters were nothing more than prisoners of Tiberius under the close watch of soldiers.

To the surprise of many, Caligula is spared by Tiberius: in 31, Caligula is remanded to the personal care of the emperor on Capri, where he is to live for the next six years.

The affair with Sejanus and the final years of treason trials have permanently damaged Tiberius' image and reputation.

After Sejanus's fall, Tiberius' withdrawal from Rome is complete; the empire continues to run under the inertia of the bureaucracy established by Augustus, rather than through the leadership of the Princeps.

Suetonius records that he became paranoid, and spent a great deal of time brooding over the death of his son.

A shortage of grain in 32 leads to public protests in Rome.

Meanwhile, during this period a short invasion by Parthia, incursions by tribes from Dacia and from across the Rhine by several Germanic tribes occur.

Agrippina, in prison at Pandataria, protests violently.

On one occasion, Tiberius had ordered a guard to flog her, during which punishment she loses an eye.

Refusing to eat, Agrippina is force-fed but later starves herself to death, expiring on October 17, 33 CE.

Tacitus, however, leaves open the possibility that she was deprived of nourishment while in prison and her death was not voluntary.

After her death, Tiberius slanders her name and has the senate declare that her birth date was a date of bad omen.

Together with Caligula, Germanicus’s eighteen-year-old daughter, named Julia Agrippina after her mother and known to posterity as Agrippina the younger, has also escaped the purges, as have seventeen-year-old Julia Drusilla, and fifteen-year-old Julia Livilla.

Caligula had pledged cooperation with the Senate, but had soon begun to rule in an autocratic manner.

After an illness in October 37, Caligula’s mental health had quickly deteriorated, at least according to Senatorial propaganda.

Caligula now focuses his attention on political and public reform.

He publishes the accounts of public funds, which had not been made public during the reign of Tiberius.

He aids those who lost property in fires, abolishes certain taxes, and awards prizes to the public at gymnastic events.

He allows new members into the equestrian and senatorial orders.

Perhaps most significantly, he restores the practice of democratic elections.

Cassius Dio said that this act "though delighting the rabble, grieved the sensible, who stopped to reflect, that if the offices should fall once more into the hands of the many ... many disasters would result".

(Cassius Dio, Roman History LIX.9.7.)

During the same year, Caligula is criticized for executing people without full trials and for forcing his treatment of his pricipal supporter, Macro, who has meanwhile been confident of rapid promotion for past services.

However, Caligula, mindful of the potential threat Macro poses, soon has him arrested and stripped of his office in the year 38.

Macro and his wife Eunia both commit suicide soon after.

Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and his sister Aemilia Lepida, the children of consul Lucius Aemilius Paullus, are both married to siblings of the emperor (Aemilia was married Caligula's elder brother Drusus Caesar; Lepidus is married to Caligula's younger and favorite sister Julia Drusilla).

He is also great-grandson of Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus (consul of 50 BCE and brother of the triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus).

Some areas of his lineage are unclear.

However, through his mother Julia the Younger, Lepidus is the great grandson of Emperor Augustus Caesar.

Drusilla had been married to Lucius Cassius Longinus since 33 but Caligula had forced his brother-in-law to divorce Drusilla so that she could marry Lepidus in 37.

The marriage lasts until Drusilla's death from fever in June 38; they have no children.

Because of this marriage, Lepidus had become a close friend to Caligula and his family.

After the death of Gemellus in 37, Lepidus was publicly marked by Caligula as his heir.

In late 38, when the governor of Egypt Aulus Avilius Flaccus is arrested, Lepidus successfully persuades Caligula to exile Flaccus to Andros rather than Gyarus.

Caligula hates the fact that he is the grandson of Agrippa, and slanders Augustus by repeating a falsehood that his mother was actually the result of an incestuous relationship between Augustus and his daughter Julia the Elder.

Around this time, the erudite Claudius, who suffers from a paralytic condition that had perhaps disqualified him as a target of Tiberius’ purges, makes his second cousin Valeria Messalina his third wife.

Messalina, whose family is eminent and connected by ties of marriage and blood ties to the Julio-Claudian dynasty, was probably born and raised in Rome.

Little is known about her life prior to her marriage to Claudius.

Messalina was very wealthy, an influential figure and a regular at Caligula's court.

Claudius, who is becoming influential and popular,probably marries Messalina to strengthen ties within the imperial family.

Upon marrying Claudius, Messalina becomes a stepmother to Claudia Antonia, Claudius's daughter through his second marriage to Aelia Paetina.

According to Cassius Dio, a financial crisis emerged in CE 39; Suetonius places the beginning of this crisis in 38.

According to Suetonius, in the first year of Caligula's reign he had squandered the twenty seven hundred million sesterces that Tiberius had amassed.

His nephew Nero Caesar, the future emperor, will express both envy and admiration for the fact that Gaius had run through the vast wealth Tiberius had left him in so short a time.

Caligula performs a spectacular stunt in 39 CE by ordering a temporary floating bridge to be built using ships as pontoons, stretching for over two miles from the resort of Baiae to ...

...the neighboring port of Puteoli.

It is said that the bridge is to rival that of Persian King Xerxes' crossing of the Hellespont.

Caligula, a man who cannot swim, then proceeds to ride his favorite horse, Incitatus, across, wearing the breastplate of Alexander the Great.

This act is in defiance of a prediction by Tiberius's soothsayer Thrasyllus of Mendes that Caligula had "no more chance of becoming emperor than of riding a horse across the Bay of Baiae".

Caligula's political payments for support, generosity and extravagance have exhausted the state's treasury.

Ancient historians state that Caligula began falsely accusing, fining and even killing individuals for the purpose of seizing their estates.

Historians describe a number of other desperate measures by Caligula.

In order to gain funds, Caligula asks the public to lend the state money.

Caligula levies taxes on lawsuits, marriage and prostitution, and begins auctioning the lives of the gladiators at shows.

Wills that left items to Tiberius are reinterpreted to leave the items instead to Caligula.

Centurions who have acquired property during plundering are forced to turn over spoils to the state.

The current and past highway commissioners are accused of incompetence and embezzlement and forced to repay money.

Despite financial difficulties, Caligula embarks on a number of construction projects: some for the public good, others for himself.

Josephus describes Caligula's greatest contribution as the improvement of the harbors at Rhegium and Sicily, thereby allowing grain imports from Egypt to increase.

Caligula completes the temple of Augustus and the Theater of Pompey and begins an amphitheater beside the Saepta.

He has the imperial palace expanded.

He begins the aqueducts Aqua Claudia and Anio Novus, which Pliny the Elder considered engineering marvels.

He builds a large racetrack known as the circus of Gaius and Nero and had an Egyptian obelisk (now known as the Vatican Obelisk) transported by sea and erected in the middle of Rome.

At Syracuse, he repairs the city walls and the temples of the gods.

He has new roads built and pushes to keep roads in good condition.

He has plans to rebuild the palace of Polycrates at Samos, to finish the temple of Didymaean Apollo at Ephesus and to found a city high up in the Alps.

He plans to dig a canal through the Isthmus in Greece and sends a chief centurion to survey the work.

A brief famine of an unknown size occurs, perhaps caused by this financial crisis, but according to Suetonius a result of Caligula's seizure of public carriages, according to Seneca because grain imports were disturbed by Caligula using boats for the pontoon bridge.

Relations between Caligula and the Roman Senate deteriorate; although the subject of their disagreement is unknown, a number of factors have aggravated this feud.

The Senate had become accustomed to ruling without an emperor between the departure of Tiberius for Capri in CE 26 and Caligula's accession.

Additionally, Tiberius's treason trials had eliminated a number of pro-Julian senators such as Asinius Gallus.

Caligula reviews Tiberius's records of treason trials and decides that numerous senators, based on their actions during these trials, are not trustworthy.

He orders a new set of investigations and trials.

He replaces the consul and has several senators put to death.

Suetonius reports that other senators were degraded by being forced to wait on him and run beside his chariot.

Soon after his break with the Senate, Caligula is met with a number of additional conspiracies against him.

A conspiracy involving his brother-in-law Lepidus is foiled in late 39, after Caligula makes public letters by his sisters Agrippina the Younger and Julia Livilla that detail an adulterous affair with Lepidus and a plot against the emperor.

Lepidus is executed and Caligula's sisters are exiled.

Agrippina is given the bones of Lepidus in an urn, and she carries them to Rome.

Caligula sends three daggers to the Temple of Mars the Avenger to celebrate the death.

In the Senate, Vespasian makes a motion that the remains of Lepidus be thrown away instead of buried.

The motion is carried and Lepidus is not given a proper burial.

Soon afterwards, the governor of Germany, Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, is executed for connections to a conspiracy.

Claudius conducts a census in 48 that finds 5,984,072 Roman citizens, an increase of around a million since the census conducted at Augustus' death.

He has helped increase this number through the foundation of Roman colonies that were granted blanket citizenship.

These colonies are often made out of existing communities, especially those with elites who could rally the populace to the Roman cause.

Several colonies are placed in new provinces or on the border of the Empire in order to secure Roman holdings as quickly as possible.

Some years after divorcing Aelia Paetina, in 38 or early 39, Claudius had married Valeria Messalina, who was his first cousin once removed and closely allied with Caligula's circle.

The ancient historians allege that Messalina was a nymphomaniac who was regularly unfaithful to Claudius—Tacitus states she went so far as to compete with a prostitute to see who could have the most sexual partners in a night—and manipulated his policies in order to amass wealth.

Messalina in 48 marries her lover Gaius Silius in a public ceremony while Claudius is at Ostia.

Sources disagree as to whether or not she divorced the Emperor first, and whether the intention was to usurp the throne.

Vincent Scramuzza, in his biography (The Emperor Claudius Cambridge: Harvard University Press [1940]), suggests that Silius may have persuaded Messalina that Claudius was doomed, and the union was her only hope of retaining rank and protecting her children.

The historian Tacitus suggests that Claudius's ongoing term as Censor may have prevented him from noticing the affair before it reached such a critical point.

Whatever the case, the result is the execution of Silius, Messalina, and most of her circle.

After the downfall of his mother, Britannicus' youth becomes a liability for Claudius.

The lack of an adult heir makes the emperor vulnerable to conspiracies aimed at overthrowing the dynasty, especially those by other Julio-Claudians.

Around this time, his niece Agrippina the Younger becomes the mistress to one of Claudius’ advisers, the former Greek Freedman Marcus Antonius Pallas.

At this time, Claudius’ advisers are discussing which noblewoman Claudius should marry.

Claudius has a reputation that he is easily controlled by his wives and freedmen.

His freedmen, according to legend, presents him three possible candidates.

The freedman Tiberius Claudius Narcissus suggests Claudius remarry his second wife Aelia Paetina, with whom he has a daughter, Claudia Antonia.

Narcissus also states that Paetina will cherish Claudia Octavia and Britannicus, Claudius's children with Messalina.

Another freedman, Gaius Julius Callistus, is against Claudius remarrying Paetina and states to Claudius that he divorced her before and that remarrying Paetina would make her more arrogant.

Callistus suggests Lollia Paulina, Caligula's third wife and Agrippina's former sister-in-law instead.

Pallas advises Claudius that he should marry Agrippina, stating to the emperor that as Lucius was the grandson to Claudius's late brother Germanicus, by marrying Agrippina, Claudius would ally the two branches of the Claudian house and imperial family.

In more recent times, it has been suggested that the Senate may have pushed for the marriage between Agrippina and Claudius to end the feud between the Julian and Claudian branches.

This feud dates back to Agrippina's mother's actions against Tiberius after the death of Germanicus, actions that Tiberius had gladly punished.

Regardless, for Agrippina’s seduction, it is a help that she has the niece’s privilege of kissing and caressing her paternal uncle.

Seduced by her passions, Claudius makes references to her in his speeches: "my daughter and foster child, born and bred, in my lap, so to speak".

When Claudius decides to marry her, he persuades a group of senators that the marriage should be arranged in the public interest.

In Roman society, an uncle (Claudius) marrying his niece (Agrippina) is considered incestuous, and obviously immoral.