A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Agrippina, (Julia)
AGRIPPINA, (JULIA) the Younger, daughter of the preceding. Died A. D. 59.
Was born in the city of the Ubii, from her called Colonia Agrippina, at present Cologne, and educated by her grandmother Antonia, who saw, with sorrow, the children of Germanicus contaminated with the most odious and horrible vices. With all the pride and ambition of her mother, Julia Agrippina inherited none of her good qualities; but, unrestrained by any principle, she employed, without shame or remorse, every charm of person, and power of intellect, to the purpose of her own aggrandizement. She was married, first to Domitius Œnobarbus, by whom she was mother of Nero: and, after his death, her irregular conduct was so notorious, that she suffered public penance, and was banished, by her brother Caligula, to the island of Pontia, on a charge of treason. On the succession of Claudius, the sentence was repealed, and she returned to Rome to pursue again her intrigues and cabals. She married, secondly, Crispus Passienus, a patrician of great wealth, which was soon all her own, as he lived but a very short time after their union. One object only now remained for her ambition, the imperial crown; and she accordingly practised so successfully upon the weakness of the emperor, that, though his niece, he married her, and in his name she held the reins of government. Claudius had a son; but Agrippina had one also, that she was determined should succeed him; and, for this purpose she obtained every honour and advantage for Nero, while the other was kept back from any thing that might give him consquence, or gain him popularity. Claudius at length was made sensible of his situation, and of the more than profligacy of her character; but he had no power to free himself from her toils, and some words which were spoken by him unguardedly, when heated with wine, being reported to the empress, she thought it unsafe to spare him any longer, and he was accordingly poisoned by her orders.
Agrippina had attained the point for which she had waded through seas of blood and dishonour; and she now played her part with much policy. The death of Claudius was kept secret, and the young prince retained within the palace, till Nero was proclaimed emperor. This darling son seated upon the throne, she still expected to govern with the same sway; but Nero, though at first he treated her with great respect, soon learned to consider the consequence she assumed, as an encroachment upon his authority. Notwithstanding her artifice, her threats, and remonstrances, Agrippina felt her influence gone. Her son took away her guards, and assigned her, instead of her magnificent palace, a mean house in the suburbs, where people were stationed to mortify and insult her. By the force of her natural eloquence, she, however, contrived again to rise into favour; but a reconciliation between hearts so depraved, who feared and knew each other, could not be lasting; and distrust soon created a wish in Nero to rid himself, by any means, of one whom he hated.
He began, by affecting a more than common tenderness, and invited her to his villa at Baiæ, by a very kind letter, expecting she would have gone by sea, as a galley had been sent for the purpose, and so contrived, that the part appropriated to her accommodation might be separated from the other, and sunk at any given time. Some dark intimations of danger, however, had put Agrippina upon her guard, and she went by land; but the honour he paid her, and the affection he showed during her visit, so lulled every suspicion, that she was persuaded, as it was a fine night, to return in the vessel prepared.
Sleeping in a bed upon the poop, at a given signal, Agrippina, and a lady with her, began to sink gently into the waves, for the parts had not been adjusted nicely enough to perform their office properly; and many of the crew, not knowing the intentions of the emperor, attempted to save them. Agrippina, whose presence of mind never deserted her, though dismayed, kept a profound silence; but the lady, from her crying out, was mistaken for the empress, and killed by a blow from one of the creatures of Anicetus, the commander of the galley. In the mean time her mistress, receiving no other hurt than a slight wound upon the shoulder, was taken up by a bark.
In the midst of these suspicions and dangers, Agrippina forgot not her interest:—she dispatched a messenger to inform the emperor of her safety, though she was at no loss to divine whence her peril had proceeded, and took measures to secure the fortune of the lady who had perished to herself.
Nero, alarmed at the failure of his project, saw no safety for him, but in her immediate death, and dispatched Anicetus, with a written order for that purpose. His mother, uneasy at the non-appearance of her messenger, who was imprisoned by Nero, was in bed when her house was surrounded by the creatures of Anicetus, who proceeded, with three men, to her chamber, from whence her women fled, and she began to feel that her last hour was come. Yet still she thought it her interest to dissemble. "If you come," said she, "to learn the state of my health, you may tell my son that I am well; but, if it be to murder me, I will never believe that he commanded it."
As she finished these words, the assassins came round the bed, and one of them gave her a blow on the head with a truncheon; and Agrippina, at length driven to despair, had no measures to keep—and looking fiercely on Anicetus, who was preparing to destroy her with his sword, she cried, "Strike this womb, and punish it for giving birth to thy master."
Thus fell a woman whose life was one continued crime; whom adversity did not either amend or terrify; and whose evil genius was never lulled to sleep, even by the attainment of its purposes.