Agrippina the Younger

By then, he was a mature man, of delicate health since his youth, and famous throughout Rome for his eloquence.

The person who brought him back was Agrippina, the new wife of the Emperor Claudius.

Agrippina was an intelligent woman, ambitious and utterly without scruples.

She had a son of about twelve, Lucius Domitius, and a plan.

to make him emperor.

Seneca didn't enter that family out of ambition.

He entered it, in large part, out of gratitude.

He owed his return to Agrippina.

Certainly the Roman Empire is filled with betrayal.

We could tell a couple of whoppers, but all I have to do is mention Agrippina the Minor and everybody gets it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

She not only poisoned the emperor, She was murdered by an emperor.

There were some really, really powerful freedmen, they were called, who ended up having really high positions of power and a lot of money.

And so like Agrippina, who's another woman who I'm fascinated by from later in Roman history, was very good at cultivating those kinds of relationships.

So I think remembering that relationships matter, understanding the power of getting the right collection of people in a room and getting them talking, being able to kind of bring people around to your side or at least get them to see your side.

I also think there's something to be said for not having to act like a man or emulate a man in order to get ahead.

It's like I don't think it was an easy time to be a woman, either highborn or low.

And I think it must have been very frustrating for women who knew their own minds and were smart and ambitious and just wanted to do their own thing because they always had to find their power, typically through a man.

And we see that in women like Agrippina, who ends up, you know, marrying her uncle, which is a whole other thing, marrying her uncle in order to become the empress and then wielding power through her son, the famously terrible Nero.

But she, you know, I think she probably would have been an incredible leader in her own right.

This goes back to Roman times.

Emperor Claudius, to secure the succession of her son Nero, it is said that one of Claudius' wives, Agrippina, said, was a murderess, which is very interesting.

So, it is said that she gave him a drink with death caps somehow, and that that's what killed him.

Now, there's been some doubt casts here, because Claudius wasn't exactly a healthy guy.

In 49, however, Fortune, whom Seneca as a Stoic so often ridicules, came to his rescue.

Agrippina had him recalled and appointed tutor to her son, later to become the emperor Nero.

Holding the usual offices of state, and growing in prominence, Seneca administered the affairs of the prince, in partnership with Burrus, the praetorian.

Together they maintained the balance of power between throne and senate, until the death of Burrus in the year 62.

So we really know the heartbeat of the show, But there really is tinkering.

I mean, Lindsay called me last night and said, you know, she says this twice, Sally's character Agrippina, about her uncle.

And we don't need it really twice.

And it was like, okay, you're right.

The adjective is true, yeah.

But it's also because I write so many young roles.

I was gonna say, this is the great thing as well, is it's not only writing young roles, but it's really giving agency to those characters.

That's

The story, moreover, has an ending that almost seems written on purpose as a lesson.

In the year 49, Claudius married Agrippina and, according to Tacitus, it was she who had Seneca recalled from exile to make him tutor to her son, a young lad called Nero.

Seneca got back Rome, power, his audience, his wealth, everything he had missed on the island, and he discovered what it costs.

He spent years at an increasingly dangerous court beside a pupil who ended up as one of the most feared emperors in history.