Agrippina, Julia

or Agrippina the Younger

(born AD 15—died 59) Mother of Nero and a major influence in the early years of his reign. Daughter of Vipsania Agrippina (c. 14 BC–AD 33; called Agrippina the Elder) and sister of Caligula, she was exiled (39–41) for conspiring against Caligula. Her first husband, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, was Nero's father. Accused of poisoning her second husband (49), she married Claudius, her uncle, and had him adopt Nero as his heir instead of his own son. She poisoned her son's rivals, and when Claudius died in 54 she was suspected of having poisoned him. She became regent when Nero took the throne at age 16, but she gradually lost power. He tried to murder her when she opposed one of his affairs, and he finally had her put to death at her country house.

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