Agrippina the Younger

Agrippina the Younger was born on November 6, 15 or 14 in a Roman outpost on the Rhine River called Oppidum Ubiorum, presently situated in Cologne, Germany, as the first daughter of an eminent general of the Roman Empire Germanicus and his wife Agrippina the Elder, a great-granddaughter of the first Roman Emperor Augustus.

Her three elder brothers were Nero Caesar, Drusus Caesar and Caligula of whom the latter became Roman emperor. She had two younger sisters - Julia Livilla and Julia Drusilla.

Her father, suspected to be poisoned, fell ill and died in Antioch on October 10, AD 19, while her mother along with Nero Caesar and Drusus Caesar fell to the scheming of Praetorian Prefect Lucius Aelius Sejanus.

She grew up under the influence of three notable and powerful women, her mother, Agrippina the Elder; her paternal grandmother, Antonia Minor; and her great-grandmother, Livia Drusilla /Julia Augusta, wife of Augustus. During this time, her great-uncle Tiberius ruled the Roman Empire succeeding Augustus.

After she completed 13 years of age, Agrippina was married off by Tiberius to a close relative of the five Roman Emperors from the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, in Rome in AD 28. Gnaeus was her paternal first cousin.

Gnaeus was the only son of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 16 BC) and Antonia Major, niece of Augustus thus making him the great-nephew of Augustus. Gnaeus had two sisters Domitia Lepida the Elder and Domitia Lepida the Younger and was also maternal cousin of Claudius.

Gnaeus, who hailed from a prominent family of consular rank and served as consul in AD 32, was infamous for his despicable and dishonest character described by Roman historian Suetonius as "a man who was in every aspect of his life detestable".

Gnaeus and Agrippina chose to live between Rome and Antium (present-day Anzio and Nettuno). Gnaeus was inducted as commissioner by Tiberius in early AD 37 and on December 15 of that year the only son of Gnaeus and Agrippina, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, later Emperor Nero, was born in Antium.

According to Suetonius, while responding to friends congratulating him on his son’s birth, Gnaeus said "I don't think anything produced by me and Agrippina could possibly be good for the state or the people".

The Praetorians declared Claudius, uncle of Caligula as the next Roman Emperor on the very day of the latter’s assassination. Following his accession to the throne, Claudius recalled Agrippina and Livilla from exile.

Claudius asked wealthy, intelligent and powerful Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus to divorce his wife, Domitia Lepida the Elder, Nero’s first paternal aunt, and marry Agrippina. Following the marriage, Gaius became Nero’s step-father.

Gaius, who held the consulship twice, was possibly treacherously killed by Agrippina around AD 47. His fortune worth two hundred million sestertii went to Nero.