Agrippina the Younger

Born in AD 15, Agrippina came up through the Julio-Claudian bloodline with a pedigree nearly no one could match: great-granddaughter of Augustus, daughter of the general Germanicus, sister to the emperor Caligula. When Caligula was assassinated in AD 41, their uncle Claudius took the throne. Agrippina married him eight years later — her uncle, her emperor — and set to work. Ancient and modern sources call her ruthless, ambitious, domineering; she used every political tie she had to steer the state and position her son Nero as heir. Claudius caught on, but in AD 54 he died under suspicious circ…