Claudius, with Agrippina Junior, 41-54. Aureus (Gold, 19 mm, 7.60 g, 8 h), Lugdunum, 50-51. TI CLAVD CAESAR AVG GERM P M TRIB POT P P Laureate head of Claudius to right. Rev. AGRIPPINAE AVGVSTAE Draped bust of Agrippina to right, wearing wreath of grain ears. BMC 72. Calicó 396f. Cohen 3. RIC 80. A lovely example with a particularly charming portrait of the famous empress. About extremely fine.


Wife of Claudius and mother to Nero, few Roman women have captured the imagination of scholars, poets and artists as much as Agrippina Junior. Born in 15 or 16 AD in an oppidum, called Ubiorum, on the Rhine, she was a niece of Claudius and married to Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus in 28, with whom she had a child named Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, the future emperor, Nero. In 49, Agrippina married her uncle, thereby becoming his fourth wife, a constellation that led to problems as a bitter rivalry ensued between Lucius and Claudius' own son, Britannicus. Most ancient sources accuse Agrippina of poisoning her husband, but we do not know for sure if Agrippina played any role in Claudius' death on 13 October 54, or if the old and sickly emperor died in an accident or simply of natural causes.

In any case, with Claudius passing, Britannicus' fate was sealed and Nero succeeded to the throne. In a gruesome irony of fate, however, the young emperor and his influential mother clashed with each other with increasing frequency, and Nero eventually had Agrippina assassinated in 59. Today, her heritage lives on in the modern name of the city of Cologne, which goes back to the ancient Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, a Roman colony founded in 50 by Claudius at the site of Agrippina's birthplace of Ubiorum .