Niece and fourth wife of Emperor Claudius, Agrippina the Younger (15-59 AD)was suspected of having him and his son assassinated in order to secure the throne for her own son, Nero. Through him she hoped to dominate Rome.

On her mother's side, Agrippina was the great-granddaughter of Augustus, who molded the Roman Empire from the ashes of the Roman Republic. Her father Germanicus was the nephew and designated heir of Augustus's successor Tiberius. In the year 20 AD, Germanicus met an untimely death. Agrippina undoubtedly retained childhood memories of the subsequent mistreatment suffered by her mother and older brothers at the hands of Emperor Tiberius, who was only a stepson of Augustus. She would have learned at her mother's knee to despise "usurpers" who were not direct descendants of Augustus. Historians have long suspected that a childhood spent steeped in fear and resentment may have warped Agrippina's brother...