3-098-890 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Nero before the corpse of his mother, Agrippina the Younger, 1887. "Seeing that three times his mother had managed to escape the death he had ordered, neutralizing the effects of the poison administered to her with antidotes, Nero resolved that she should die by drowning or being crushed. To this end, he ordered the construction of a ship that, at a given moment, would sink as if by a chance collision; but against all expectations, and by a rare stroke of luck, Agrippina swam to safety, leaving Nero unsure what to do. Suetonius recounts that at this point Lucius Agerinus, Agrippina's freedman, arrived, very pleased to be able to announce to the Emperor the news of his mother's survival. Then the tyrant, surreptitiously throwing down a dagger, began to shout to give the impression that he was the victim of an assassination attempt ordered by his mother. He ordered Agerinus arrested and put in chains...He murdered his mother in such a way that it appeared she had taken her own life to escape the consequences of her crime. It is said that Nero rushed to observe Agrippina's corpse, that he touched her cold limbs, praising the beauties of some and criticizing others, and that, feeling thirsty, he asked for a drink".