A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Agrippina
AGRIPPINA, a Roman Lady. Died A. D. 33.
Daughter of M. Vipsanius Agrippa, and of Julia, daughter of Augustus, is famous for her pride, ambition, courage, and above all, for her fidelity and love to her husband Germanicus. Formed to be the wife of an hero, Agrippina accompanied him wherever he went, sharing his dangers and his toils. She was seen often at the head of armies, appeasing the seditious, encouraging the soldiers, and filling all the functions of the most able general. Germanicus dying in Spain, Agrippina, having shown her tenderness by her tears, attacked Piso, who was suspected of having poisoned him, forced him to destroy himself, and returned to Rome, bearing the ashes of her husband in a sepulchral urn. Tiberius, who had been jealous of the glory of Germanicus, was pained by the high reputation of his widow, and banished her to the island of Pandatiere. Always proud, even in the bosom of misfortune, she reproached him to his face, with his injustice and cruelties. This tyrant commanded a centurion to strike the grand-daughter of Augustus, which was done with such violence, that she lost one of her eyes. Reduced to despair by this outrage, she abstained from food, and died in the fifth year of her exile. The rage of Tiberius was not appeased by the death of Agrippina: he persecuted her even in her children, and ordered the day of her birth to be numbered amidst the unhappy ones.