Agrippina Minor - Birth and Early Life

Birth and Early Life

Agrippina was born at Oppidum Ubiorum, a Roman outpost on the Rhine River located in present day Cologne, Germany. As a small child, she travelled with her parents throughout the Empire until she and her siblings (apart from Caligula) returned to Rome to live with and be raised by Antonia. Her parents, in the meantime, journeyed to Syria to complete official duties. One year later in October, Germanicus died suddenly in Antioch (modern Antakya, Turkey).

Germanicus’ death in the year 19 caused much public grief in Rome, and gave rise to rumors that he had been murdered by Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso and Munatia Plancina on the orders of Tiberius, as his widow Agrippina the Elder returned to Rome with his ashes. Agrippina the Younger was thereafter supervised by her mother, her paternal grandmother Antonia Minor, and her great-grandmother, Livia, all of them notable, influential, and powerful figures from whom she learnt how to survive. She lived on the Palatine Hill in Rome. Her great-uncle Tiberius had already become emperor and the head of the family after the death of Augustus in 14.