The Death of Julia Aggripina
Mathew Mullenmeister
History 101 Ancient Rome
I intend to write on the death, and possibly murder of the mother of Emperor Nero, Julia Agrippina daughter of Germanicus, and wife/mother of emperors. This event takes place in chapter 17 of The Flames of Rome by Paul L. Maier. For sources I have The Women of the Caesars by Guglielmo Ferrero, Wikipedia, and even Tacitus and Suetonius. Agrippina was a woman with a burning ambition one that led her to her uncle’s’ bed all to be the mother of an emperor. Unfortunately her dominating nature led to Nero tiring of her, and so he tried many times to kill his mother. Most of the attempts failed but Agrippina’s luck did eventually run out.
Maier portrays the events similar to what was assumed by the Roman populous. After all his
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Maier seems to go with the majority of motives, Poppea wishing to become empress, and Agrippina’s attempt at seducing her son. Maier also adds in the previous failed assassinations though who knows if these were actual historical events or fiction. Overall the information Maier prevents in his book seems reasonable, the events he writes were all at least rumored to have occurred. Agrippina and Nero had supposedly come close to if not committed incest, and whether she pushed for it or not Poppea was definitely part of the reason Agrippina was killed. Maier presented the event quite well, it seemed that he took all the most commonly held beliefs by historians and used them to write his historical fiction. While we can never know what was truly said or thought Maier definitely portrayed his characters well. Overall I do not see any way Maier could have written this event better, with the knowledge that is available this seems to be the closest we can come to what might have occurred and