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Updated: May 13, 2025
But Agrippina was artful enough to manage her indolent and stupid husband just as she pleased; and she soon found means to displace Britannicus, and to raise Nero in his stead, to the highest place, in precedence and honor. She persuaded Claudius to adopt Nero as his own son, as was stated in the last chapter. She obtained a decree of the Senate, approving and confirming this act.
He then took the youngest son of Agrippina to live with him at Capri; that he, Tiberius, might personally do the best with him that was to be done; for he foresaw that this youth Caius would succeed him; his own grandson, Tiberius Gemellus, being much younger. He foresaw, too, that Caius, once on the throne, would murder Gemellus; which also happened. But there was nothing to be done.
How could he risk such a grave imprudence? And yet there was no time to lose in reproaches. Nero begged for advice: Seneca and Burrhus were silent, but they, also frightened, asked of themselves what Agrippina would do. Would she not provoke a colossal scandal, which would ruin everything?
There is a remarkable story told of Agrippina, that, upon some occasion, when a wizard announced to her, as truths which he had read in the heavens, the two fatal necessities impending over her son, one that he should ascend to empire, the other that he should murder herself, she replied in these stern and memorable words Occidat, dum imperet.
She had been subsequently enfranchised, but she remained still in the palace, forming a part of the household of Agrippina. Nero had never felt any strong attachment for Octavia. His marriage he had always regarded as merely one of his mother's political manoeuvers, and he did not consider himself as really bound to his wife by any tie.
He married Lepida , by whom he had two sons; but the mother and children all dying, he continued a widower; nor could he be prevailed upon to marry again, not even Agrippina herself, at that time left a widow by the death of Domitius, who had employed all her blandishments to allure him to her embraces, while he was a married man; insomuch that Lepida's mother, when in company with several married women, rebuked her for it, and even went so far as to cuff her.
I had prepared another nursery for the little Claudius Nero, and I endeavored for a while to convince his mother that my arrangements were best. But Agrippina was inflexible. The closet suited her in every respect; and, with charming and irresistible flattery, she gave me to understand, in the mute language I knew so well, that she wished her baby boy to be under my immediate protection.
Livia, too, now no longer protected by Augustus, became a target for the accusations of a malevolent public opinion. It was said that she persecuted Germanicus out of hatred for Agrippina. Tiberius was much embarrassed, being hampered by public opinion favorable to Germanicus and at the same time desiring that his sons should set an example of obedience to the laws.
A few unimportant traces can still be here discovered of an ancient temple of Hercules. Some masonry, in the form of a monument, marks the alleged spot where Agrippina was murdered and buried by order of her son. The immense reservoir built by order of the emperor Augustus for the purpose of supplying the fleet with fresh water, is situate in the neighbourhood of Baiae; it is called Piscina.
Nero now remained the last and only survivor of the family of Augustus, and it was therefore no longer possible to bring any effective opposition to bear upon him by setting up some other member of the family who would be capable of governing. The new nobility, with its modern tendencies, now rapidly gained strength, and the influence of Agrippina declined proportionately.
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