racy, forced them to condemn her, and had her driven into exile, where she remarried in constant fear of a violent death.
On the death of Caligula, Agrippina, recalled from exile, was married to the consul Crispinus, whose sudden death was ascribed by her enemies to poison administered by his wife. Five years after this, Pallas proposed her to Claudius, as the successor of Messalina; and after the interval of a year, during which Agrippina had much to contend with from rivalry and intrigue, the obstacle opposed to this marriage by the ties of consanguinity was relieved by a special law, and the daughter of Germanicus ascended the throne of Augustus, and ruled the empire from that moment, in the name of her imbecile husband. Under her brilliant and vigorous administration, faction was controlled, order re-established, and that system of espionage abolished which had filled Rome with informers and their victims. The reserve and dignity of her deportment produced a reform in the manners of the imperial palace, and her influence over her husband was of a most salutary nature.
Tacitus has loaded the memory of Agrippina with the imputation of inordinate ambition, and, though there is probably considerable calumny in these charges, it may be supposed that a temperament like hers, did not shrink from the arbitrary and cruel acts which might be thought necessary to her safety or advancement. Still, the woman must be judged by the circumstances under which she lived, and with reference to the morality of her contemporaries; and, so judged, she rises immeasurably superior to the greatest men associated with her history.
Agrippina was the first woman who acquired the privilege of entering the capitol in the vehicle assigned to the priests in religious ceremonies, and on all public occasions she took an elevated seat reserved for her near the emperor.
On the occasion of the adoption of her son to the exclusion of the emperor's own child by Messalina, the infant Britannicus, she received the cognomen of Augusta; and to the prophetic augur who bade her "beware, lest the son she had so elevated might prove her ruin," she replied, "Let me perish, but let Nero reign." In this answer we have the secret of her great actions, and the motive for all her imputed crimes. Amidst all her lofty aspirations, her indomitable pride, her keen sense of injuries inflicted, her consciousness of power acquired, there was one deep and redeeming affection; this brilliant despot, the astute politician of her age, was still, above all and in all—a mother!
The marriage of her son to Octavia, the emperor's daughter, consummated the hopes and views of Agrippina, and relieving her from maternal anxiety, allowed her to give up her mind entirely to the affairs of state; and owing to her vigorous guidance of the reins of government, the last years of the reign of Claudius were years of almost unequalled prosperity in every respect—and this indolent and imbecile emperor died while the genius and vigour of his wife were giving such illustrations to his reign.
Agrippina has been accused of poisoning her husband, but on no sufficient grounds—his own gluttony was probably the cause of his death. But that Agrippina's arts seated her sou on the throne of the Cæsars, there can be no doubt.
In all this great historical drama, who was the manager, and moat efficient actor? woman or man? Whose was the superior
