• General Notes

  Note: Vipsania Agrippina was the daughter of Augustus' invaluable ally, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, and of Julia, Augustus' only daughter. She was thus raised intimately within Rome's first imperial family under the stern eye of her step-grandmother, Livia. As a member of that family, Agrippina would have been expected to embody the same strict Roman virtues as her mother and grandmother; frugality, chastity, and domesticity. Insofar as the traditional values described above applied to her mother, Julia failed spectacularly at all three and was banished by the Emperor; yet to the end of her days, Agrippina arrogantly prized her descent from the divine Augustus. In 11 BC, after Agrippa's death (by whom Julia had five children), Augustus forced Julia into a political marriage with her stepbrother, Tiberius, Livia's son. Agrippina was 3 years old when Augustus became her stepfather. The marriage, initially tranquil, became deeply dysfunctional. Tiberius left Rome for Rhodes, allegedly to avoid the scandal of his wife's sexually infidelities. In 2 BC, when Agrippina was only 12, Augustus discovered that his daughter was whiling away her spare time by committing adulteries on a notorious scale. The fact that Julia had been forced into not one, but three, loveless political marriages at her father's behest was no excuse. Augustus had passed severe laws against adultery in his attempts at moral reform. Allegedly he learned of her behavior through her sons (and his adopted children), Gaius and Lucius, Agrippina's brothers, who protested that their mother's behavior was notorious. Augustus banished Julia for life to the island of Pandateria off the western Italian coast, although she was later permitted to move to slightly easier house arrest at Rhegium. Agrippina never saw her mother again. It would be yet another source of friction between Agrippina and her former stepfather when, after Augustus' death, Tiberius effectively starved Julia to death by stopping her allowance. After Julia's exile, Agrippina and her remaining siblings were raised by Augustus and Livia. One wonders at the psychological impact on the daughter of her mother's passive fate. She could not have imagined that the same fate would befall her. Life With Germanicus, 5-19 AD At the age of 18 or 19, Agrippina was married to Nero Claudius Drusus "Germanicus", Livia's grandson, probably in 5 AD. It is important to understand that Germanicus, son of Livia's son Drusus (brother of Tiberius), was an attractive, educated general with genuine star-power popularity with the Roman people. She bore him nine children, half of whom would die in the imperial power-struggles following the death of Augustus. She was by all accounts a loyal and affectionate wife and supported her husband while on campaign in the approved manner.

Details of  Vipsania Agrippina 's family with  Germanicus   Caeser