The agonizing public procession to Rome, however, through crowds running wild with grief and anger at the death of their favorite, surely left an indelible impression. Her mother's dignified but clearly heartfelt grief caught the imagination of the Roman people and won popular esteem for the widow and her children. If Tiberius had not felt jealous and uneasy earlier, he now had good cause for worry.
Agrippina the Elder was too ambitious to spend the rest of her life in quiet widowhood with her children. Her relationship to Tiberius was further complicated by her status: as a granddaughter of Augustus, she was heir to political connections and influence, making any second husband an automatic threat to Tiberius's plans for the succession. In such a thoroughly political household, it is likely that the young Agrippina would have been aware of the trial of her father's accused assassin (who ended inquiries by committing suicide). She would also have known of the deepening public hostility between her mother and Emperor Tiberius, who had not even come to the ceremony when the ashes of Germanicus were placed in the tomb of Augustus. Attending state dinners, Agrippina the Elder ostentatiously took precautions against poison in her dishes.
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