You're Dead to Me - Agrippina the Younger

Episode Date: January 15, 2021

Greg Jenner is joined by returning guests, historian Dr Emma Southon and comedian Cariad Lloyd as they travel back to 1st-century Rome to meet Agrippina the Younger. Empress, overbearing mother of the Emperor Nero and murderer, but how much of what has been written about this extraordinary woman is true? What does it really take to survive as a woman at the top of the Roman Empire?Produced by Cornelius Mendez Script by Greg Jenner and Emma Nagouse Research by Harry PranceA production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. All day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a history podcast for everyone. For people who don't like history, people who do like history and people who forgot to learn any at school. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster, and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible History. You may also have heard my other podcast, Homeschool History,

although that one's mostly for the kids. In this podcast, we take a bit of serious and a sliver of silly to serve up a steaming hot slice of history pie. Today, we are popping on our togas and tunics and journeying all the way back to classical Rome, to the first century CE, to meet Agrippina the Younger, an empress, mother of an emperor, and one of the most astonishing slash dangerous women in the ancient world. And to help me separate the truth from the tattletales, I'm joined by two very special guests. In History Corner, she has a PhD in ancient history and is an expert on all things Roman.

She's the author of a magnificent new book, A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, about murder in the Roman world. Handy. But more handy, of course, is that she's also the biographer of Agrippina the Younger. And you'll remember her from our episode about Boudicca. It's Dr Emma Southern. Hi, Emma. How are you? Hello. I'm all right. Thank you. I've also got my cat here who won't get off me. So it's Emma and livia oh livia the cat goodness me that's very on brand roman empress names are good for cats because they're also quite dangerous uh under leaf and in comedy corner she's a comedian a writer

an actor a podcaster and an improvisational wizard you'll have seen her in all sorts of shows including qi murder and successful peep show sar Sarah Pascoe's Out of Her Mind, and she's the award-winning host of the award-winning Griefcast, a podcast about death. But it's funny. And of course, you'll remember her muttering, Malleus Maleficarum, from our episode of You're Dead to Me about the European witch craze. It's the lovely Cariad Lloyd. Hi, Cariad. How are you? Welcome back. I'm good, thanks, Greg. Yeah, I've survived my witch dunking to go back even further to Roman times. You enjoyed that episode a lot.

We had a lot of fun. Oh, I love history so much. I'm such a geek. I love it so much. I mean, I think of you as a kind of 19th century Regency period expert because of Ostentatious, the improvised comedy show you do. So is Rome a bit, is it a bit far away for you? I never did Rome at school.

That's the thing, like if I did anything at school, it's like something's lodged in your brain, isn't it? But I think we really didn't do anything Roman, but I have seen I, Claudius. Ah. So I'm probably same level study as Emma. Effectively the same, yeah. So what do you know?

All right, that brings us on to the So What Do You Know? And this is where I have a crack at guessing what you at home might know about today's subject. And if you are familiar with Agrippina the Younger, then chances are it probably is from Barbara Young's rendition of her from the 1976 TV film I, Claudius. There's also a slightly more infamous filthy movie from 1979 called Caligula, which was produced by Penthouse magazine. And let's just say it was very much a hardcore interpretation. Although Nero would have loved it, right? Oh, yeah, very much so. More recently, of course, you might have seen Kim Cattrall's simply stunning depiction of Agrippina in the 2019 masterpiece, Horrible Histories, the Movie, Rotten Romance,

as an unbiased observer. I'm happy to declare the greatest film of all time. Obviously, I'm not at all biased. Chances are, if you do know anything about Agrippina, you'll know her as the kind of overprotective helicopter mum of Emperor Nero. You might know she was the sister of Emperor Caligula. You might know she was dangerous, a little bit sexy, quite a lot of

scandal. But how much of this is true? Let's find out. Okay, first of all, Dr. Emma, can we just have a super speedy introduction to Roman politics at the time of her birth? Because we're talking here really early in the empire, aren't we? We are really early. So the first century CE is the very beginning of the imperial system in Rome. Most of Agrippina's early life is under Tiberius, who is only the second emperor. He's massively unpopular and has come to power with great difficulty because the Romans are very, very against the concept of monarchy. So they're pretending really, really hard that they don't have a monarchy. The system that she is growing up is

one where she and her family are a royal family, but there is still this kind of veneer of pretense that they're actually just the same as everybody else, that everybody is agreeing to go along with because they're fed up of civil wars. So it's a busy old time. Cariad, do you know who the Julio-Claudians are? Is that like Julius Caesar's gang? That's what I'm guessing. No. They are the ultimate family because they're essentially two families that have married into each other, I guess. Exactly.

So you've got two very old, very, very famous families. They go back to the beginning of Rome and they're incredibly rich. Julians, who is Julius Caesar's side, so that's where Julius comes from. And then you have the Claudians, who are another very, very ancient family. They're less good because the Julian side now have two gods,

basically. They've got Julius Caesar. That's really unfair, isn't it? To have two gods on your team. Yeah, and they also claim descent from Venus. They didn't get a month either did they like julia's got a month out of it what's claudian doing yeah come on but they have come together in the marriage between livia and augustus and your cat not my cat um she's never been married she remains like elizabeth the first yeah exactly um and so they've come together and the combination of the

two of them is basically unstoppable they have just an immense amount of prestige and authority and divinity that can't really be questioned or overshadowed by anybody else was everyone else really annoyed when they got together yeah Yeah, yeah, they were. You must have been really like, if you wanted any kind of power, you were like, oh, God, dumb. It helps that it was a big scandal at the time because Augusta stole Livia from her husband while she was already pregnant.

Ooh! Ooh! Scandal! The curse of Strictly. Yeah. So Agrippina, in terms of her heritage, Cariad, Oh, stand up. The curse of Strictly. Yeah. So Agrippina, in terms of her heritage, Cariad, she is the great-granddaughter of the first emperor.

She's the granddaughter of the second emperor. She is the sister of the third emperor. She's going to be the wife of the fourth emperor and she'll be the mother of the fifth emperor. No, it's become maths. It's not history anymore. She is like the nexus point at which all power goes through. So her parents are Germanicus, who is descended from the Claudian side, and Agrippina the Elder, who is the last surviving grandchild of Augustus, so come from the Julian side, and they are married together,

and then they have loads of children. It's like the Kanye West, Kim Kardashian marriage. It's like, oh, wow, the two superpowers of United. So she's born in Germany because her dad is called Germanicus. Why is he called Germanicus? Because he has loads and loads of massive victories in Germany. Did not think you were going to say victories. Just the pause there, Mum.

Germanicus actually is disappointingly very, very chaste. Him and Agrippina the Elder love each other very much and they are banging all the time. Agrippina the Elder has 11 pregnancies in 15 years. Not a good idea for your back. While travelling the Empire and largely living in military camps. Yeah, you say they love each other, but really they were just like, we've got a lot of kids and we're really tired.

Affairs are not, I can't be arsed. Like, can you be arsed? No, just go to bed. Well, they only stopped because Germanicus dies. Goodness knows how many they would have kept going with. Wow. Because she was only, she was like, Agrippina the Elder was like under 35 when she was widowed.

Yeah. So Agrippina the Younger is born in Germany to a dad called Germanicus. She's born in the year 15 CE. It's weird when you say the year 15. Which is during the life of Christ, I guess, is when he's a teenager and he's playing Xbox. I think he's just shouting at people in temples at that age. Sure.

Jesus is in his sort of angry young man. He's constantly having arguments with people, yeah. He's got an acoustic guitar, he's going round, everyone's like, oh God, he's at the party again. Oh wait,

there'll be more wine. Let him in, let him in. So, her mother is called Agrippina the Elder. Her siblings, six survive, is that right?

Three boys, three girls. Three boys, three girls. Oh yeah. I watched Cyclodis a long time ago. So much so that when you said oh she's in it i was like is she her childhood is complicated i mean she's born into an imperial family so you're thinking power power power you know but it's a bit like an

episode of succession because actually everyone hates each other there's rivalry there's tension her dad dies suspiciously probably killed by someone in power agapina the elder is convinced that um her husband was murdered by the emperor and she comes back to Rome and basically spends a long time telling everybody this, which makes for some interesting dinner parties. Eventually he gets fed up of her basically and has her and her two eldest sons exiled and then she dies. And Agrippina, her father dies when she's three or four years old

and then her mother dies when she's about 13 and her two eldest brothers as well. That's a lot of drama at 13, isn't it? It is a lot of drama, but she's distracted almost immediately by being married off. That'll solve it. That'll deal with the trauma, won't it? She's 13, let's just marry her.

Come on, she'll be all right it is a little bit it's like well you don't have a man anymore so we found a man for you congratulations my god there's a woman without a man here does everyone know quick but what's interesting to me is that she briefly stays in the house of her grandmother and her great-grandmother livia the wife of augustus the first emperor so she is living in a house with two ex-empresses, which must be an amazing... It must be one hell of a household.

The chat, the daily chat must have been really interesting. But that's a really good work experience, isn't it, for being a future empress herself? Because she's growing up living in the home of these two incredible women who were born survivors, but also who have experienced the most tumultuous period of history. And who are both low-key terrifying. Well, Livia's quite frightening, but Antonia is genuinely very scary.

Antonia kills her own daughter by locking her in a room and starving her to death. Cool, Mum! Thanks! Sorry I didn't say thank you! To be fair, she does it because she poisoned her husband. I mean, there's always justification for these things. But sounds like somebody was real naughty

and the naughty stem was not cutting it. So she went into the hungry box. Oh, you don't see that on Supernanny, do you? The starvation chamber. Did they have therapy in Roman times? I didn't know. You want to sit down and be like, I feel like there's a lot of issues with your grandparents.

They had stoicism instead. Oh, stoicism, nice. Where they just said their feelings are bad. I mean, you would with that much trauma to deal with. When I feel these feelings, I don't feel good. So let's just ignore the feelings. So she's 13 years old. Her dad is dead.

Her mum is dead. Life has already started on pretty ropey terms. But she then has to marry this guy called Lucius Domitius Ohinobarbus. Yeah. Oh, it doesn't sound good, does it? What do you reckon Ohinobarbus means in Latin, Cariad? It sounds bad. Like it sounds like barbarian. Heathen barbarian. You're actually not far off. It actually means red beard. Oh.

Barbus means beard beard so barbarian is is sort of linked to the idea of beards but i thought you were just saying yeah you know there's red bearded guys they are heathen barbarians so that is broadly what the romans thought she hasn't married some simpering 13 year old boy who's singing her ed sheeran songs he is a brutal man he kills a slave for being more sober than he was. He tears out a guy's eye in an argument in the middle of the forum. He runs over a child

with a chariot for the fun of it. Like, he's a genuine bel-end. She's done real bad. This is not... I mean, she hasn't. He's also in his 30s.

Oh, mate. I've got penis. I'm sorry. And her cousin, like her second cousin. Oh, yeah, and you're related. So, listen,

you have to marry him. He's 30. He ran over a child just for, like, jokes. Also, you're related so listen you have to marry him he's 30 he ran over a child just for like jokes also you're related to him okay bye it's that hungry box do you want the hungry box

then you're going to marry him so they get married in about the year 37 and she gives birth to a son and this son is going to grow up to be called Nero

his name's not Nero at this point he's called Lucius I think and then something interesting happens in this year as well in that that Tiberius, the emperor, he dies. And that means that Agrippina's brother comes to power. And Agrippina's brother, of course, is the lovely, low-key, very charming Caligula. Oh, he's a great guy. Well, he's great to Agrippina,

to be fair. Going from her childhood traumas, suddenly her brother's on the throne. Does that mean that she's suddenly like, OK, cushy? Yeah. Well, she doesn't have a bad kind of 10 years in between. So she's married in about 28. And then there's 10 years where she's married to a consul and it's not too dreadful. But she notably does not have any children during those 10 years. She has it the year that Tiberius dies, which I find interesting. They clearly made the decision not to have kids

until Tiberius was gone because he had killed every other member of their family. Oh my God, that's crazy. So they literally were like, but not having any kids. Okay, so like relative murders them. Exactly. Like that's not going to go well.

They have Nero literally about 10 months after Caligula becomes the emperor. And Caligula is so nice to his sisters. Like a large part of the beginning of his reign is about glorifying and honouring his nuclear family, bringing his mother's memory back. And his sisters are the only people who are left alive. So they're the centre of that.

So they're the first living women to be put on coins with their name, given the rights and privileges of vestal virgins which means their bodies are made sacrosanct so when they're walking in the street if you you're not allowed to touch them because if you touch them then you are committing a religious offense um wow yeah um they get all of the best seats in the um in the games i love it that's like the second it's like look no one will ever touch you again. You're safe. Also front row. Oh, amazing. And he includes them in the oath. So whenever you have to take an oath, like when they're doing standard speech in the Senate, they would say in the name of the emperor.

They now say in the name of the emperor and his sisters. So they're really brought into the center. He really pushed that brand didn't he he was really like the brand of the family but it then goes rather horribly wrong so drusilla one of the sisters dies tragically young of natural causes and then agrippina and lavilla the two remaining sisters are exiled cariad what do you reckon they've done it's caligula right so what did they do did they like say the wrong date did they look at him funny he did once kill somebody for forgetting his birthday oh well there you go there you go and also fair play because people should remember that you've got a google calendar put it in there they plot against

him and he catches them he's going on his way to germany to do some war things in germany and kind of recapture his father's memory and on the way he stops off at their like holiday home where his sisters and his brother-in-law who's Jusilla's husband are having a lovely holiday and kind of catches them in the act of doing a big plot against him um I love this like as a wall chart with like lots of like arrows pointing like we murder him here then we run away here yeah why were they doing that when he was so nice to them? They just wanted power for themselves? He was not a very good emperor. And everybody hated him very much.

Succession, it is succession. It is succession, isn't it? Ken can't do it. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. He's not very good. Everybody hates him. He has wild fancies, which he then forces everybody to go along with.

He is a bit of a bastard um to put it very mildly he doesn't do the pretending that he's not a king very well um and he we got a trump situation right we got a truck like it's like he is in power and everyone's like oh god it shouldn't be him this person should not have this amount of power yeah yeah um so it's probably that but he is heartbroken he's also reacted very very poorly to drusilla dying because he did love her um and he has done things like ban people from having dinner with their parents um or laughing oh my god there's someone in the as we say in my on my podcast the dead parent club club that's hilarious that you're like yes screw you guys no mother's

day no father's day no one's ever allowed to enjoy their parents ever again he doesn't execute them he exiles them so uh we have two surviving sisters are shipped off to asia to asia minor i guess what we call persia now or the middle east i suppose while she's in exile uh her nasty piece of work husband dies ahina barbus can we assume she's involved in that death or is it just sort of natural causes? Well, he dies of dropsy, which is a massive swelling of the liver. Proper disease, that, yeah. Yeah, but she doesn't seem to be too cut off about the situation. She does seem to have missed Nero quite a lot there

because he was sent to live with his paternal aunt. And so she was kind of left swinging around on a little island by herself. She's sort of saved from this life of exile because her brother, the emperor, is murdered. So now that means that she is a widow. She has no husband. Her brother is dead. So two things. Who's the new emperor?

And also, is she back in Rome? Yeah, so the new emperor is weird Uncle Claudius um who is germanicus's older brother who has had no public profile because he has some kind of disability rome is found that embarrassing now i know the actor you're talking yeah that's derrick jacoby thank you let's just call him derrickoby. So Derek Jacoby is on the throne. So he gets to be emperor and he brings Agrippina and Lovilla back to Rome. He could have killed them off, but he decided that the best way to deal with it was that they were still members of the family. Everyone had agreed with them now that Caligula was actually bad and that they were right all along. The first thing they do is dig up Gaius's body and give him a big public funeral.

Killie Killie's body, isn't it? Yeah. Which is a real public show of even though we hated him and you murdered him, we still like him. Yeah, or at least it's honouring the family, I guess. It's saying, look, he was legitimate and he was murdered. Look, we've got a brand. We need this brand not to look like it ended in a weird, horrible murder. It's going to end in a lovely funeral, lay the flowers down, and everyone's going to forget about it, yeah?

And the interesting thing about Grappina now is she arrives back in Rome pretty much married because she has been set up by her brother before he was murdered, before Caligula was done away with. He said, I want you to marry someone. The guy's already married, but it's fine. I'll get him to divorce his wife.

And this chap's called Passienus. I'm sorry? Sorry, Passienus. Nothing rude there. Perfectly normal name. Passienus, that's fine i'll get him to divorce his wife and this chap's called passianus i'm sorry i'm sorry passianus nothing rude there a perfectly normal name passianus that's fine if you ever want to read my book you'll find someone in there called poopianus oh my god yes please so she's she's been basically an arranged marriage to passianus who's already married so he has to divorce his wife who is her sister-in-law. Yeah. It's a big girl. He's a big fish. This is a good marriage. He is a consul. He's incredibly wealthy.

He is well-respected. He's intelligent. I don't want to kink-shame him because sexual preferences are perfectly okay. But he does have a slightly non-traditional interest. Carrie, do you want to guess what he's into? No, he's called Parsianus. I don't want to guess. I do you want to guess what he's into? No, he's called Parcianus. I don't want to guess.

I don't want to get too close to this situation in case I'm somehow involved in the kink. It's not that end of the body. Don't worry. Okay. I don't know. It's something Roman. Go on. He likes grapes up his ass.

What is it? He fancies a tree. Oh. So he gets off with a tree. He's caught snogging and fondling a sacred tree in the grove. Yeah, giving it wine in order to get it drunk. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, isn't it? Wow!

You know what? That's not what I thought you were going to say. That's quite Tolkien-esque, isn't it? Because Tolkien liked trees and ants. Tolkien was not into trees like that. I want to just... I hate Malcolm. I'm a big Tolkien fan. fan i just meant tolkien related

to them as as more than just trees but um you're saying that tolkien fondled a bush is what you're saying look i'm gonna more respect for the ents than this guy getting them drunk and fondling them tolkien was like you should be free roaming this country this guy's just like i want you to be mine chestnut tree the thing about it is that it makes the tree famous. Because Passianus is already so famous that he has a bizarre joke with the tree, which is this is the kind of thing that Romans think is very, very funny. Was this tree like selling its story in the tabloids? Like my dirty night with Passianus?

The reason we know about it is because it's in this book called The Natural History by Pernini and the Elder. And there's this entire chapter on um trees that have been made famous by remarkable events so people with it was like a tourist attraction so how does agrippina feel about the fact that her husband is uh you know having a little fondle with a piece of flora i feel that agrippina probably thought that Pasienus was an absolute pain because he's basically notorious for being very funny in a Roman style. If you bring him along into a party, he's going to stand in the corner and make amusing quips about things. Does she murder him?

Because based on the timeline I've got here, Emma, is that she manages to convince him to adopt Nero as his own son. Yes. Which means that all of his wealth and power will pass to Nero. Yes. And then immediately afterwards, he has a convenient death. He does die fairly shortly after that. The only accusation of him being murdered comes from a fourth century scoliast on Juvenal. So scoliasts are people who wrote

like editor's notes on the side of manuscripts and in juvenile one of junior satires there's a mention of a guy quintus crispus the scholiast tries to write a note saying this is who quintus crispus is but what he writes instead is a note about crispus bassianus and writes like this 200-word biography of the wrong person which doesn't speak to his abilities as a historian. It's very useful. We love what you've done.

We love this massive essay at the side. It just feels like it's not about who we wanted it to be, actually. I don't know why. Guys, guys, listen.

I'm a scolius i know what i'm doing all i want to know is at the funeral did the tree turn up weeping so passienus is dead perhaps conveniently maybe a hint of suspicious nero has inherited his money and lands agrippina has presumably inherited his money so she arrives back into Rome, a widow again, two dead husbands, one living son, and she manages to land a new husband. Do you want to guess who that is, Cariad? Is she related to him? She is. Is it her brother that they dug up?

No, it's not the one who died. It's another brother. It's her dad. It's her uncle. Yes. It's her uncle. Her uncle. Of course I should have been.

It's Romans. It's uncles. It's always an uncle. It's Emperor Uncle Claudius. Oh. Derek Jacoby? Yeah. So she's what, 32?

Give or take at this time. How old is he at this point? In his late 50s. Oh, okay. I thought he was like 90. They really aged him up in that 1970s series. He is her dad's older brother. He's a couple of years older than her dad.

Gross. That's real gross. I mean, presumably she's brought all this wealth and power from the Passiena's sort of inheritance and now she's married the emperor. So she's now sitting pretty, surely. The problem is that Claudius already has a son called Britannicus. and now she's married the emperor. So she's now sitting pretty, surely. The problem is that Claudius already has a son called Britannicus and that means that Claudius already has an heir

and so Nero is sort of, meh, backup heir, bonus heir. But Agrippina is not keen on that situation. Presumably she's going to be like, no, no, no, no, no, my son comes first. She's not subtle about it at all. She marches in, they get married on like the 1st of January, 49. And within a couple of months, Nero has been adopted by Claudius and given the name Nero. His daughter has been adopted out of the family so that he can be married to Octavia. to Octavia. So he is now immediately both Claudius's nephew, great nephew, and adopted son,

and son-in-law. Oh God, that's not a family tree, that's a family circle. It's a straight line all the way down the page. He's given his toga of manhood and is dressed up in like little military outfits pretty much straight away and he's given official positions by the time he's 14 meanwhile britannicus who's about five years younger is kept as a child agrippina makes sure that he doesn't have any supporters around him so she tries to keep anyone who would be sympathetic to him or his mother away from him and keep him out of the public eye as much as possible in order to keep Nero at the forefront of everyone's thoughts. So Nero has essentially married his sister,

but they've got around that by adopting her into a different family. And then, of course, Agrippina is married to her uncle. Now, incest is clearly something that's happening a fair bit in the Roman world, in the aristocratic world. Emma, incest is also used as a weapon. Caligula is supposed to be incestuous too. You know, how is it used as a tool of reputation damage? It's a real trait from the late Republic through the first century of a thing that you can use to attack any man in public and who seems to be spending too much time with the women.

So you have Caligula is really nice to his sisters. He puts them on coins and he includes them in his oaths and they're always in public with him. And he's really sad when one of them dies. So this becomes obviously he was banging them. And you see it before like Clodia and Clodia. So this really famous brotherister duo from the late Republic who are constantly being accused of having sex with each other because they spend all

of their time together in public. Later on, Agrippina is accused of having sex with Nero. It does not stop when they are related to you. But then it's fine for her to marry her uncle. Isn't that the creepy thing? Not the rumour, the fact, the actual fact that she is now married to her uncle they do find that very creepy great i'm glad you know what good for the romans because it is yes so i mean agrippina is now surely the most powerful woman in the entire roman empire and yet roman law doesn't

really allow for powerful women usually women are dependent on their their husbands or their fathers but she sort of seems to wield quite a lot of power. So what is she doing that's different? Legally in Roman culture, women are perpetual minors. So they're never allowed to act as adults by themselves. They can never sign a contract. They can never make a business decision by themselves. They can never really...

It's so confusing. I don't know how to do it. Yeah. Why does the big tablets don't work? Technically, that is the law and so technically she wouldn't be able to sign something by herself but claudius is basically quite a weak person um and agrippina is a very strong personality but instead of being like sign this she's like i'm going to come with you to sit next to you to this delegation of british prisoners and i think i'll just sit there because i have the blood of the Julians and I have the

divine blood and you don't have anything. So if you could just agree to that, that would be lovely. And Claudius goes, okay, yeah, thanks. Sorry. So she basically is able to wield an immense amount of quite active power by appearing in public in these ways. So there's this great bit of Tacitus where it talks about her being the only woman in Roman history to sit in front of the Roman standards I mean Claudius is renowned for being a very brilliant and lengthy writer he wrote these enormous histories so he's a bit of a nerd isn't he he's sort of just quite happy in the background just writing his stuff and sort of jotting down his thoughts. He needed a shed, basically. Carrie, have you heard of his previous wife, Messalina? No.

She had quite the reputation. I'm not quite sure how much I'm allowed to say here on the radio, but let's say she was something of a horndog. Oh, she's the one who's sleeping around and then shaming him. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, more than just sleeping around. I mean, according to one story, she has a 24-hour orgy in which she beds 25 men in a row in order to win a competition.

Oh, my God. She defeats a professional sex worker. They have this competition as to who can have sex with the most men before they tap out, and she wins. Allegedly. How did her and Claudius meet? I'm like, that was a bad match on ok cubid that day what are your interests oh i like writing history and your interest oh i like orgies

okay let's try let's see see if you've got any well okay cousin.com you're a match and so it's 100 go for it oh my god. Okay, so he had not the best of luck. No, and Messalina, in the end, he had to execute her because she bigamously married her boyfriend while still being married to the emperor. And that was not on. Well, Claudius was on a day trip. He went on a day trip and she married someone else.

I love these ones. You've got to go for one day. One day. He comes back with his stick of rock. He's got little sandals on. You did go to the sea as well i just went to the sea you've married someone i'm going to kill you now i don't want to i actually don't want to but you pushed me into this back to agrippina so her son is in pole position now like she's managed to basically shuffle younger britannicus off to the sidelines

nero is very much heir to the throne. Things get increasingly complicated. Other families sort of lurking in the background. Can we hear a little bit about Junius Silenus Torquatus, who Agrippina destroys? He's supposed to marry Octavia, but then Octavia is betrothed to Nero. But in order to get Octavia out of the betrothal, because you can't just say, oh, we've changed our minds. That's like a breach of contract. She has him accused of incest. Classic. Classic. And he's just twiddling his thumbs, kind of walking around the place. And then all of a sudden he's dragged into court. Yeah. And in the end, he has to kill himself in order to maintain his honour.

So he's accused of having sex with his sister called Junia Calvina. So Agrippina has destroyed a whole family so her son can move up the ladder and marry Octavia, daughter of the emperor. So she doesn't take prisoners. You've been Agrippina'd, basically. We should mention that Agrippina, as well as being a great diplomat and a sort of brilliant political mind, she also founds a city, which is still a very popular city today. It's in Germany. I'll tell you what the Latin name is, and you can guess what the German name might be. So it's called Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium. Oh, Cologne. It is Cologne. Very good. Well done. I mean,

that to me seems slightly weird because Cologne just means colony, and there are loads of cities called colonies. It was a big mouthful, wasn't it? They were like, Colonia, Babylon, Babylonism, just kind of... It's the only one in the area, that's why. Makes sense. But they should call it Agrippina. They should have a little referendum and they should rename it. Okay, so she has married the emperor, she has moved her son into pole position, and then she presumably no longer needs the emperor anymore because everything is in place. So when Claudius is aged 63, he suddenly gets very poorly and he suddenly dies.

Now, according to both Cassius Dio and Suetonius, this is because Claudius has realised that Agrippina, his wife, is a wrong-un. He's gone, hang on a minute, I've married an absolute conniving hussy who murders people and bumps them off and I can't trust her. And so she has to murder him in order to protect herself. And then, of course, there's the other option, which is that he dies of old age or some illness

or whatever. But according to the story, Cariad, do you know what the murder weapon supposedly is? Is it his pen or something horrible like that? And they're not far off. It is a poisoning. It's a poisoning, but it's food. Oh, God. I can't remember. I'm sorry. It is a poisoning. It's a poisoning, but it's food. Oh, God. I can't remember. I'm sorry. It's a poison mushroom.

Oh. Of course, Claudius bloody loved mushrooms, didn't he? He loves his mushrooms. He loves a stroganoff. At down to the shed, come up, you stroganoff. She thought, bang, I'll get this done by half past five. Story goes that the doctor is in on it, and Claudius eats the poison mushrooms,

but sicks them up, and so the doctor poisons on it And Claudius eats the poison mushrooms But sicks them up And so the doctor poisons him again With a feather quill I think to make him sick And make sure that he gets the poison On the end of a feather tip I was close with Penn So Penn is right What I love about this story, Emma

Is that in order to pull off this poisoning She hired the most famous poisoner in Rome Lacusta In the Empire in fact I love the idea of a famous poisoner who's got like, everyone's like, oh yeah, Lacosta,

I love her work. Oh, she's great. She poisoned my aunt the other week. It was marvellous. Yeah, well, the Romans are very into poison as an art form almost. It's kind of related to magic, but they're quite invested in like

the ways in which you can poison someone secretly so you can send them mad, or you can kill them so that it looks like a slow disease. Romans, get some therapy. Yeah, I know. Jesus, Romans. So Claudius is dead,

and of course that means the empire passes to Agrippina's son, Nero. Emperor Nero, fifth emperor. He's 19, something like that. 18, 19, yeah. So he inherits as an adult, so he's ready for power. Yeah, well. I i mean not emotionally he's technically been a public official since he was 14 um okay which leads rise to the image of people having to go to plead their cases like this person stole my horse or this person murdered my grandmother and there's nero, the 15-year-old boy, having to make a decision about this.

Oh, yeah, sounds pretty bad. Yeah, exactly. Maybe you should both die. Do you want to hear a song I wrote? Agrippina thinks that she is going to enter this relationship and be the regent to Nero, that she's going to be able to stand beside him as she did with Claudius and that she, this time, is going to be the senior partner in the relationship.

She's going to be the one with the experience. She thinks that she is going to be in charge. Unfortunately for her, Nero does not agree with this at all. Well, if you will raise an absolute arsehole, he will turn out to be an absolute arsehole over Peter. If you poison and murder and use your canary to put someone in place, chances are they have not grown up very well adjusted yeah they learned they learned from the best so he now knows how to really screw someone over thanks mom yeah and also there's something about like suddenly finding

your mom hovering by your mom i don't i can do it myself get away yeah it's like your first day of university and yeah and your mom mum's moving in with you. Yeah, yeah. Just fluffing your cushion style. No, I've got to make friends. It'll be cool. I'm old now. That was me, obviously.

But, I mean, the poisoning hasn't ended. You'll remember already, Cariad, that Agrippina had accused someone perfectly innocent of incest and he'd had to then go and kill himself. Well, she then accuses the remaining members of his family of the same problem, the same crime. She's got a lot of anger issues.

That's what I'm hearing. So this is Lepida and Marcus Junior Salinas. They are now trying to retaliate. She counter-retaliates. Who wins, Emma? Agrippina, obviously. Basically, he has a claim to the throne and she doesn't want anybody around who could potentially

harm Nero's claim. So she makes all these accusations. They go, we are a great family and they make some accusations back. And it goes back and forth until Agrippina's like, look, just go out. Who's Empress? Basically, who's Empress? I mean, the general gist of Agrippina's life is that it's sort of more dramatic than a Mexican soap opera. I mean, it makes a Mexican soap opera look like Countryfile. It's like endless murders and double crosses. But she now herself is the victim of that kind of politics

because her son, Nero, suddenly is like meddling mums. What are you gonna do and so there's starting to be sort of tension between them when of course she'd always been his greatest champion and now she's his rival I mean what I will say I mean very quickly I will say that Agrippina for all her murderous ways she did like birds every serial killer needs a hobby. But I mean, the point now comes where Nero, her son, becomes really very sort of disenchanted with the idea of mummy hanging around. So he sits on his throne and she tries to sit on the throne next to him. And he's like, what are you doing? Get off. This is my throne.

And she appears on the coin, his face on one side, she's on the other side. He's very influenced by Seneca, who is a philosopher who has a philosopher who was exiled for shagging the last remaining sister, Lovilla. Better than a tree. And then Agrippina had brought him back when she became emperor. She installed him as Nero's tutor because he's a very famous Stoic philosopher.

She thought he'd be a good influence. And he kind of is, but not in the way that she wants because he's very conservative about the place of women um and about what a good ruler is and the place of women is not sitting next to the emperor it is at home wearing a pretty dress um almost immediately into his reign Nero says that his mom's not going to be part of that reign anymore. And then there is an incident where a delegation comes from Armenia, which is always causing a problem. And they come in to see Nero to resolve the issue. Agrippina enters the room in order to sit next to him as she would have if it was Claudius. And Seneca pushes Nero forward and says get rid of her right Nero then has this

moment where he has to decide whether he says no to Seneca and invites his mum to sit next to him or steps forward and removes Agrippina and he chooses to side with Seneca and steps forward says hi mum lovely to see you here a bit busy at the moment and leads her out of the room and basically says to her you're not going to be an active part of my administration you are going to be my mom at home and then to make it worse in order to say sorry he gives her a dress which is just like a stab in the heart to her because the one thing that everyone says about her is that she's not interested in luxury she wears kind of plain outfits and they find this really disturbing because they think it's natural for women to be luxurious and spend loads of money on gold

so they she's busy guys running stuff and killing people and they give her a dress oh that's so insulting isn't it and it's like an extra pretty dress and she is just like i gave you an empire and this is what you're going to give to me. How dare you. Burn. I'm on her side suddenly. There is a lovely argument they have as well where at one point Nero threatens to run away and become an actor. He does.

It's such a teenage rebellion. But that's the worst thing to her. It's like the idea of paying for your child to go to an incredibly expensive private school and then them going actually mum I'm going to be a rapper. Oh no. Yeah. So they are falling out. The tension is there. paying for your child to go to an incredibly expensive private school and then them going, actually, mum, I'm going to be a rapper. Oh, no! So they are falling out, the tension is there, and she's not going to accept this really. But ultimately, things get a bit murdery from Nero's point of view

because he now hires mum's favourite poisoner, La Costa, to bump off his brother, well, stepbrother, Britannicus. Britannicus, deaded, murdered. You can't have him lurking around, he's too dangerous. So Nero is also turned to poison. stepbrother, Britannicus. Britannicus, deaded, murdered. You can't have him lurking around. He's too dangerous. So Nero is also turned to poison. But the problem is now that Agrippina has ruffled more feathers, there is another plot against her,

this time from her frenemies, Junia, Silana and Domitia. They're coming up with a plot not to sort of bring her down, but they're looking to kill her. They see a little moment of weakness. They see that she's removed from the palace and she's put into a different house and there is this massive split public split between Nero and Agrippina and so they see this moment this might be their chance to get rid of her. So they set up this very elaborate plot. What they do is they get an actor to go into the party that Nero is having about 1am when everybody is kind of coming down and burst in and declare that he has just found out that Agrippina is plotting with

some guy and they're going to overthrow him and what they're hoping is that Nero will be drunk and scared and will send someone to go and murder her on the spot and they will be got rid of her what happens instead is that Burris and Seneca come in and they're used to dealing with Nero's tantrums and Brainiac should persuade Nero not to kill his mother and to go to bed instead. The next morning they go and find Agrippina, ask her what's going on, give her a private meeting with Nero which is unprecedented and then she not only manages to talk her way out of this accusation she manages to talk her way back into the palace and also gets several of her friends really good

new jobs but she went in there and they get exiled of course as well as always happens to anyone who comes up against agrippina exile or death that's the choice don't fight her i mean in the end nero does decide mummy is too meddlesome mummy needs needs to die. It's very Freudian. And he decides he's going to murder her. Well, initially he's like, I guess I could poison her. But then that doesn't seem to work out. And then he's like, stab her? But that's quite obvious. He's told no one will stab Agrippina. She's

the daughter of Germanicus. Oh, really? Yeah. So because Germanicus is a great warrior, no one's going to harm his daughter. Also, she's still immensely popular because she has that heritage. And what he wants is for her to die in an accident. Heavy inverted commas. So he can maintain her popularity and he can be the morning sun.

Oh, yeah. That looks good for the brand, doesn't it? Exactly. So he can be, oh, I'm terribly sad. My brilliant mummy is dead. He can deify her. Everyone can feel very sorry for him, but he can still get everything he wants, which is to divorce his wife and marry his friend's wife instead.

Cariad, do you want to guess the two absurdly complicated plans he tries to fake accidents? He wants her to fake trying on a poisoned dress. Oh, that's good. That's really good. Not that then. You do well in the Roman world. Thanks. Yeah that then. You do well in the Roman world. Thanks. Yeah. He gets a chariot driver to give a lift to her favourite poisoner's hangout.

But he gets the chariot driver drunk and then the chariot driver is going to drive off a cliff. This is not as far as off as you think it might be. I am a Roman, guys. Who knew it? I thought it was Celtic. And you're one of really good murders. I'm quite worried about you now, Cariad, because that shows real deviousness.

But the plan initially was that the roof over her bed would collapse on purpose while she was asleep and crush her. Nice. Which is a really hard thing to pull off. That didn't quite work. But if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. So the next plan is a collapsible boat oh okay she goes on holiday they're in the bay of bay and she's in a house

on one side and nero's in a house on the other side um because they have so many houses and so he invites her to dinner and the easiest way to get from one side of the bay to the other is to get a boat so she goes over for dinner then he pops her on the boat and the boat is designed in some way that nobody understands where it's going to collapse throw her off the boat um and then everyone's gonna go oh no agrippina fell in the water what a disaster what happens is the boat collapses she's thrown into the water she is an excellent swimmer something so she's never mentioned to nero apparently um so she swims to shore her enslaved handmaiden shouts help me help me i'm agrippina i'm the empress save me and gets beaten to death with an oar so she basically swims home um and

then sends the messenger off to nero's house and says been a bit of an accident, but don't worry, I'm okay. She's like the Rasputin of Roman times. She's like, you are not killing this woman. She's like, I can swim. His plans are all so rubbish. Yeah, they sound rubbish, isn't it? So he has a bit of a panic. He throws a dagger on the floor

next to the messenger and says, oh my God, she's trying to kill me. And then send some people around to stab her. And they go around, they turn up at her door and she says, this is all from Tacitus, and says oh my god she's trying to kill me and then send some people around to stab her and they go around they turn up at her door and she says this is all from tacitus she says if you are here to see if i'm all right i'm fine if you're here from my son to kill me i don't believe that he would try to kill me and they respond by cracking her on the head with a sword and she gets back up again and says wow if you're gonna kill me then stab me here and points at her womb

so he does then she is speared on the sword and that's how she dies is that how that's how tasta says it happens right well yeah no one was there but i think it's a really good story yeah but i don't know it sounds like a man writing that she then pointed at her womb i think she would have been like yo tell that bastard son yeah i'm gonna come back there's a ghost i'm gonna sort him out he's never gonna hear the end of it there are stories that she haunts him in in his sleep and she does lurks and screeches and he never goes back to the bay of bay because he says he can hear her crying on the wind is that because you murdered your mum there yes congratulations nero you ruined that holiday destination there is a story told that agrippina had been to a fortune teller when she

was pregnant with nero and was told that your child will one day murder you and she sort of responds by saying let him kill me so long as he reigns which is sort of this sort of incredible like doesn't matter if he kills her as long as what she really meant was let him kill me so long as he reigns. Which is sort of this incredible like, doesn't matter if he kills her, as long as she's fulfilled her destiny. But what she really meant was, let him kill me as long as he reigns. And I also reign just behind him, but sort of in control of him. I don't know. Agrippina, she has died

in the year 59 CE. She was 44. She's young, she's glamorous, she's beautiful, she's dead. Over. Career ended. But obviously she haunts him as a ghost. The Nuance Window! That brings us really to my favourite part of the show, which is called The Nuance Window. This is where Cariad and I go quiet for a couple of minutes and we allow our experts to tell us

what we need to know, what we need to understand about the subject. Right, okay, The Nuance Window. We have three major sources for the life of Agrippina. We've got Tacitus, who wrote his Annals in around about 116 CE. We've got Suetonius, who wrote Biographies of the Twelve Emperors in about 120-121. And we have Cassius Dio's Roman History, which was written about 230. So all of those three sources come between 50 and 200 years after Agrippina lived. We tend to treat them as primary sources, but they are very far away from what they're writing.

On top of that, they're both incomplete and fragmentary. Tacitus has massive holes in him. Cassius Dio is a nightmare to work with because we don't really have any of his intact. We just have epitomes and so we're not dealing with complete sources and we don't have all the information all of Caligula's reign is missing from Tacitus which is heartbreaking and they are writing Roman history which is a particular genre with particular genre conventions and they love to manipulate

and distort and misrepresent events in order to fit into their narrative and particularly Tacitus who is the main source everyone draws on because he's so good he has a story that he is telling about an evil woman that she fits into but one of the most interesting things about Agrippina is that she's very aware that this is going to happen to her that she is going to be written about and she tried to leave her own legacy in the form of an autobiography that she wrote about the tragedies of her family and we only have two extracts from it one about her experience of childbirth which is as far as we know the only written experience of childbirth from the ancient world unfortunately the other thing is lost but she did try to write her own record and to write herself into the history

books in the way that she wanted to but unfortunately all we have been left with is three misogynists trying 50 years thank you so much carrie what your thoughts on that oh i didn't know there was a record of roman childbirth i think that's amazing well yeah just the one so we know she writes about um that nero was a breach birth birth. Oh, really? Yeah. So when we say her autobiography was lost, are we thinking destroyed or are we thinking just like, you know, down the back of the sofa? Yeah, just down the back of the sofa.

I was with about 90% of Roman sources and things that were written. But also we lost Claudius's histories as well. So her husband, because he had a whole library named after him in Alexandria. So there's a lot missing. Cariad, before we do the quiz I want to ask how you're feeling about Agrippina. Oh it's just fascinating. It's an extraordinary life and we can agree on that but how do you feel sort of morally in terms of do you think she is someone it's tough with the Romans though isn't it it's tough when you get really far but obviously but because it's context isn't it as she said she was married at 13 all these traumas now look i'm not excusing poison i'm just saying that it sounds

like what they were dealing with was a bit more rough and ready than and to be fair everyone else is doing it like it's not like she's the only person if she didn't poison someone would have poisoned her right so she gets poisoning and it is like game of thrones or succession is like you're watching it and you sort of want people to do okay and then a bit of you're just like why am i rooting for them why am i like oh how did they win this court case i hope cersei's all right they're like i watched her be evil but good character good story just in terms of her youth you know her father is possibly murdered her mother and brothers are exiled neither have to kill themselves or are murdered. Her sister dies tragically young. Her other sister is exiled and then executed or dies by suicide.

Agrippina herself is twice widowed, having been married off at 13 to a nasty brute. We should probably, to a certain extent, have some sympathy for the fact that she's raised by monsters. So she becomes a monster. So what do you know now? We've got to the bottom of Agrippina's sort of ethical soul, but now let's see how much Cariad has learned.

It's time for the So What Do You Know Now? It's a 60-second quickfire quiz. Cariad, last time out, you scored 10 out of 10. I can only go downhill. But I have great faith in you because I think you're going to have a really good run here. We have 60 seconds. There are 10 questions.

Are you ready? Yes. All right, here we go. Stopwatch started. Question one. Agrippina was born in the year 15 in which part of Europe? I knew the 15 bit in Germany. Germany's right.

Well done. Who was Agrippina the younger's mother? Agrippina the elder. It was. Question three. What was the name of the two very old and very fancy families that Agrippina belonged to? The Julian and the Claudian. Yes, very good.

Question four. Name one of the three major historians who tells us about Agrippina. Tacitus. Tacitus? Tacitus, yes. Sorry, Tacitus. Or Cassius Dio. Question.

Very good. Question five. Agrippina is accused of killing her third husband, Emperor Claudius, with what food? Oh, mushroom. Yes, it was poison mushroom. Poison mushroom. Question six. Agrippina founded a city in the year 50 in Germany.

It was the place of her birth. What is it called today? Cologne. Cologne is right. Question seven. According to Pliny, Agrippina loved what type of pet animal? Oh, birds. But she also had a pet nightingale, guys.

Exactly. Question eight, she was the first living woman to appear beside an emperor on what? A coin. Yes. Question nine, name one of the ways Nero tried to kill his mother, Agrippina. Oh, by a roof falling on top of her and a collapsible boat. This for a perfect score. Question ten, how old was Agrippina when she was murdered by her son Nero? Forty-four. on top of her and a collapsible boat. This for a perfect score. Question 10.

How old was Agrippina when she was murdered by her son Nero? 44. Perfect 10. Yes! Done it again. That's incredible. I really do love history and I am very competitive, so that will really drive a quiz, you know?

That will really get you going for a quiz. Well, you did really well. And obviously a very good teacher in Dr Emma. Yeah, thank you. Fascinating. All right, well, we've all had a lovely time here. And if you at home are craving any more Agrippina the Younger, you can read Emma's book. It's a lot of fun. And if you want to listen to more dangerous women from history,

you can listen to the Boudicca episode, of course, which is also Dr. Emma. Or you could check out the Eleanor of Aquitaine episode featuring Carriaz comedy accomplice Rachel Parris. That's a really fun one. And remember, of course, if you've had a laugh, if you've learned some stuff, please do share this podcast with your friends or leave a review online.

Make sure to subscribe to the podcast feed on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. But that's it from us. A huge thank you again to our guests in History Corner, the splendid Dr Emma Southern. Thank you, Emma. Thank you very much for having me. It's always a pleasure. And in Comedy Corner, the marvellous Cariad Lloyd. Thank you, Cariad. Thank you, Emma. Thank you very much for having me. It's always a pleasure. And in Comedy Corner,

the marvellous Cariad Lloyd. Thank you, Cariad. Oh, thank you so much. It was so interesting. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we have a peek around a different corner of the past

with another pair of fun pals. Anyway, I'm off to go and wash my mushrooms to make sure they are not covered in poison. Bye! You're Dead to Me was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.

The researcher was Harry France. The script was by Emma Nagoose and me. The project manager was Isla Matthews and the edit producer was Cornelius Mendes. Hello, I'm Melvin Bragg and if that episode has whetted your appetite for ancient Rome, you should check out In Our Time, the podcast for curious minds. We explore everything

from Agrippina the Younger and her notorious son, Emperor Nero, to the historic rebellion of Queen Zenobia, from the poems of Catullus to the conversion of Constantine, from Cicero's orations to Augustine's confessions. So join me and my expert academic guests as we explain and illuminate the world of ancient Rome. Subscribe to In Our Time on BBC Sounds. This is how the pandemic ends, not with a bang, but with a shot, or rather billions of shots. I'm Tim Harford, the presenter of More or Less and 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy. the presenter of More or Less and 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy. And in a new podcast series from the BBC,

we'll be covering the defining story of the crisis, the search for a vaccine. We look at the cutting-edge biotechnology behind these vaccines and the underrated business of fridges and vials and porter cabins that will be essential in a huge public health campaign. And of course, there are the other questions. Who's going to pay for this? How will we persuade people to take the vaccine? And who gets to go to the front of the queue of several billion people? That's How to Vaccinate the World, available now on BBC Sounds.