Agrippina the Younger held a unique position in the first Roman imperial family. As great niece of Tiberius, sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius and
mother of Nero she stood at the centre of power in the Roman empire for three generations. Even in her own time, she was recognised as a woman of
unparalleled power. From exile to being hailed empress, across three marriages and three widowhoods, her life, power and role were extraordinary in their
scope and drama. Beautiful and intelligent, she is alternately a ruthless murderer and helpless victim, the most loving mother and the most powerful woman
of the Roman empire. She is portrayed in ancient sources as using sex, motherhood, manipulation and violence to get her way, and single-minded in her
pursuit of power for herself and her son. Agrippina’s life sheds light on the Julio-Claudian dynasty and Rome at its height - the chaos, blood and politics
of it all - as well as the place of women in the Roman world.
This book follows Agrippina as a daughter, born to the expected heir to Augustus’s throne, who was then orphaned, as a sister to Caligula who raped his
sisters and showered them with honours until they attempted rebellion against him and were exiled, as a seductive niece and then wife to Claudius who gave
her access to near unlimited power, and then as a mother to Nero who adored her until he killed her. She was 44 when she died. It takes us from the camps
of Germany during a mutiny, through senatorial political intrigue, assassination attempts and exile to a small island, to the heights of imperial power,
thrones and golden cloaks and games and adoration. We will see Agrippina found her own city (Cologne), live up to and then flaunt the greatest ideals of
Roman femininity and motherhood, and explore the absolute limits of female power in Rome. The biography of Agrippina is also the biography of the first
Roman imperial family - the Julio-Claudians, and of the empire itself.
More information
Emma Southon
Emma Southon is technically a Dr and likes to remind people of that. She has a PhD in Ancient History and researches sex, the family, gender and religion. She holds a long running obsession with the bad guys of the Roman empire and weirds people out by going on about Caligula a lot. She has a cat called Livia, blogs at Agrippinilla.com and tweets at @NuclearTeeth.
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13th September 2017A hello and a warning and some bits about Roman exile.
Hi pals! How are you? I am editing away as hard as I can and occassionally wondering what I was thinking when I wrote some bits, and sometimes thinking that I am brilliant and I can't wait for you all to read this! So if you could all promise to enjoy the good bits and ignore the rest, I'd like that.
But this isn't just a pointless check in. It's also a warning and a present.
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22nd August 2017Progress!
It's 11pm here in Belfast and this has just happened...
The first scrappy wee draft is done! That was the fun bit. Now editing phase one starts...wish me luck!
10th August 2017Writing Retreat Redux
In an effort to get this book in your hands as soon as I can, I have been on another little writing retreat in Donegal where I managed to knock out 11,000 words in 2.5 days. And that's WITH a sofa nap every day. I don't know why I am still surprised that having no access to the internet or Twitter is astonishingly good for getting stuff written that is more interesting than memes but I am. Not that…
24th May 2017Sneaky extract: A Brief History of 750 years of Rome.
This is a sneaky bit of the introduction, a little bit of historical and cultural context before we leap into the main narrative with Agrippina's parents.
Before we leap into the life of Julia Agrippina, we need some context. Agrippina lived in a culture that is quite alien to our own, and which valued its history and its religion very much. Romans in every stage of Roman history…
27th April 2017Writing Retreat
Last time I wrote, lovely readers, I was off on my writing retreat and it was absolute bliss. Honestly, I have not had such a good time since the first two years of my PhD. And I LOVED doing my PhD. My in-laws let me borrow their holiday home in Donegal. If you've never been to Donegal, you should get on a plane right now because there is nowhere more gorgeous. Thankfully, it rained the whole time…
5th March 2017I've been thinking about Roman Religion
About 9 months ago I started a Roman tinyletter called U Wot MVIII. One of the things I decided to document every week was Roman religious festivals and observances, thinking that there’d be a few a year and it would be fun. I’ve never studied Roman religion in any depth beyond undergraduate survey courses. I’ve always been a historian rather than a classicist, and gods and myths have never interested…
10th February 2017Fictional History and Historical Fiction
I’m going to start with two quotes that have been bothering me lately. Because I have the kind of extremely verbal brain that only gets text-based earworms. The first comes from Stefan Zweig writing in 1931 about the poetry of History (capitalisation there is his, though he was writing in German so I guess the capitalisation is the translator’s):
“Happily this respect for the facts, for…
23rd January 2017Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium
Hello everyone! my new year resolution for 2017 was mostly to write more and that includes here. So i thought I'd show you some exciting photos from my trip to Cologne last week.
As you MIGHT know, the city of Cologne was founded as Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in 50AD by our own Agrippina the Younger in order to celebrate her own birth. the city was founded at the location of an altar built…
15th July 2016New Postcards!
I have just recieved the postcards that will make up my new pledge level so I want to show them off because GOSH they're so pretty!
The front shows a frieze of Agrippina dressed as a sexy goddess crowning her son Nero as emperor. As a piece of iconography, this is staggering as she is quite literally saying that she has the power to grant the throne to whomever she wants. She herself is wearing…
2nd May 2016"Influence is rarely lasting. Such is its fate"
So I decided to start a TinyLetter. A collection of thoughts and anniversaries and interesting things that I come across as I research and go about my merry way, things that don't make it to twitter or the blog. I'll post most of the content here too, but if you want some extra Romans in your life, you can sign up at https://tinyletter.com/Agrippinilla
This Week in History
“Do not act…
29th February 2016David Cameron ****** a Pig...and the Romans
This is me doing clickbait titles. And by using a slightly out of date reference that people will only just remember I’m maintaining the tradition that ancient historians are always a little behind everyone else when it comes to modern events.If David Cameron Fucked A Pig is too 2015 for you, Ted Cruz Is The Zodiac Killer fits this too. Now most people won’t read past probably this bit (so my friends…
31st January 2016Was Agrippina a Whore?
I suppose I should write something in these wee boxes, and make it worth everyone’s while and ££ to be interested in this project. So I decided to write about something that has come up a couple of times: the decision to include the word ‘whore’ in the title.
Obviously, this is a somewhat contentious issue, and one that is exacerbated by the fact that Bettany Hughes's book on Helen of Troy…
