WEBVTT - Julia Agrippina: Mother to Nero and Ambitious Broad 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:04.160 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:11.160 partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Criminalia, 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.360 where we're exploring the intersection of history and true crime. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.320 I'm Maria tru Marquis and I'm Holly Fry And this 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:21.200 season we're talking about lady poisoners. And this week's poisoner 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:24.680 was born into royalty. She became the wife of one 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.960 emperor and the mother of another. She has been described 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.920 by both ancient and modern sources as ambitious, but also 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:37.160 as ruthless, violent, and domineering. Not the kind of endorsements 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.519 you're typically looking for on your LinkedIn profiles. So what 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:43.560 I always search for when I'm looking for an employee domineering. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:50.120 So we are talking about Julia Agrippina, the power hungry 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:53.960 Roman empress, and that's power hungry even by Roman standards. 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:58.000 So it's pretty great. Who said to have poisoned her husband, 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:00.760 who also happened to be her uncle, we'll talk about 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:10.720 that later, to ensure her only son's succession to the throne. 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.800 Julia Agrippina lived in the first century. She was born 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.160 in a small town called opdam Ubiorum, which is located 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.680 in what is modern day Germany. She was born sometime 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:27.720 between November and March fifteen of the Common Era, and 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:32.680 her parents were Germanica Caesar and Vipsania Agrippina. Julia was 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.560 often referred to as Agrippina the Younger in order to 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.640 distinguish her from her mother. Julia was actually born into 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.520 the Julio Claudian dynasty, which was the first Roman imperial 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.840 dynasty and was made up of the first five Roman emperors, 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:52.720 who were Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, names you 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:58.360 have probably heard before. Yes, Julia was the great granddaughter 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:00.880 of Augustus, that was the man who had turned the 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.840 Roman Republic into the Roman Empire and became its first emperor. 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.040 She was the great niece of Tiberius. She was the 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:12.160 sister of Caligula, the niece and the fourth wife of Claudius, 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.400 and ultimately the mother of Nero. Her story is one 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.800 of the ambition and scandal, and it sounds like something 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.080 that came out of a fiction writer's imagination. But the 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.360 idea of the female murderer, for whom poison is the 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:25.919 weapon of choice, is, as we mentioned, just a moment ago, 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:30.680 really prevalent. Throughout human history, but also throughout our mythologies 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.040 as well. So if you have studied any mythology, you 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:38.000 may remember that in Greek mythology, Searsly used magic herbs 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.320 to turn people into wolves, lions, and pigs, for instance, 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.839 which sounds kind of cool. Uh. Today you hear that. 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.480 Today you hear it described in more modern fiction in 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.880 George Martin's Game of Thrones as the preferred weapon of 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:57.680 the craven so eunuchs and also women. Julia was married 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:00.440 young in the year twenty eight, which would have made 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.080 her a thirteen year old bride. Her first husband, Nius 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.680 Domedius a Hino Barbus, was an aristocrat who was her 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.840 paternal first cousin once removed. He was also the biological 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.560 father of her only child, a son whom they named 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:18.120 Lucius Demedius Ahino Barbus. Lucius was the youngest descendant of 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:22.520 Augustus's royal blood and would eventually become the infamous Emperor Nero, 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.359 infamous for his debauchery and his extravagance, and in fact, 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:31.160 upon receiving congratulations of his son's birth, the brutish Demidius 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.400 is said to have remarked, or maybe prophecied that he 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:37.480 didn't think that anything produced by him and Julia could 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.760 possibly be good for the state or the people. Little 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.800 did he know what was to come. Eleven years later, 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.640 in thirty nine, Julia was exiled from Rome by her brother, 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:51.200 the Emperor Caligula. And at this point, Caligula was roughly 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.880 two years into his reign, and he'd reached this stage 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.280 of intense self importance and had actually declared that he 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:01.800 was a living God. But even God's apparently fear assassination. Yeah, 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:04.960 Caligula had accused his sister of taking part in a 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.360 plot to have him killed and to install Marcus Emilius 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.360 Lepidus as emperor in his place. I want to make 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:13.800 sure we're clear on this. This was not the Marcus 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.600 Emilius Lepidus, who had been a Roman general in an 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:18.880 ally of Caesar as well as a member of the 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.760 Second Triumvirate. He died in thirteen BC, so well before 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.240 the events that we're talking about. This Marcus was married 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:30.680 to caligula sister, Julia Drusilla, and there was a conspiracy 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.599 as well as a lot of romantic drama involving him 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.120 hooking up with both Julia Agrippina and yet another of 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.960 caligula sisters, Julia Levilla. But the plot to assassinate the 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:42.960 emperor failed, and it came to me known as the 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.400 plot of the Three daggers Um. He was executed for 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.240 his part in it, and like Julia Agrippina, Julia Lavilla 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:54.400 was also exiled. I always have to wonder when I'm 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:56.640 reading all these things about how one person was having 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.320 affairs with all these sisters, and like, did you have 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:06.080 like a wider dating pool to right, it's only only relatives. 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.719 Julia Agrippina was sent to the Pontine Islands, that's a 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:14.320 rocky archipelago in the Tyrannean Sea, and Caligula died two 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:18.160 years after that, and after he passed, Agrippina's uncle, the 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.600 new Emperor Claudius, allowed her to return to Rome, and 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:25.839 that allowed her to reunite with her young son. Julia's husband, Dimidius, 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.400 died in the year forty of adema, not of suspicious causes, 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.839 we promised. We're getting to the poison though, so while 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.200 she was still in her twenties, Julia was not only 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.040 a widow, but she was also the lone surviving member 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.480 of her family. Her sister, Julia Lavilla was executed by 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.359 starvation over a whole different matter, and circumstances were now 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.359 that Julia's son was the only male heir left carrying 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:53.480 the legacy of the royal family bloodline. Julia married again, 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.960 this time to the affluent ex consul Gaius Crispus Passienus, 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.560 and it was Emperor Claudius, her uncle, who actually asked 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:05.880 Christmas to divorce his then wife. He was already happily married, 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:10.960 presumably and the marriage children, yeah, and he asked her 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.440 to do this so that he could marry the recently 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:18.000 widow Julia Agrippina as a favor. Let's be very clear, 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.000 it wasn't like she was pining for him. This was 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.240 not a matter of Julia or Christmas being deeply in love. 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:28.320 This was strictly a financial transaction. Over the years, christmas 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.960 Is fortune was valued at two millions hysterity, which is 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:34.159 a form of Roman currency, persuaded during his marriage to 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.120 name his new wife and son, Julia and Lucius as 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:40.280 heirs to his state. When Christmas died eight years into 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.280 their marriage, his widow was suspected among the Romans to 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.159 have poisoned him to gain his wealth and in general 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.400 accused her of using her sexual allure to manipulate powerful man. 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.720 So for the record, we don't know for certain if 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.719 Julia poisoned Christmas, and we never will, because as you 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:57.839 get farther and farther away from a point in time 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.520 in history, your odds of unearthing and thing that will 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.320 give you that information get tiny and tiny and tinier. 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.279 But as far as the court of public opinion went 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:10.560 in her contemporary time, she was absolutely considered guilty, which 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:21.040 she might as well just be guilty. Welcome back to Criminalia. 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.880 So after the death of Christmas, Julia continued to manipulate 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.720 and money for herself into a position of unprecedented power 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.240 for a woman in the Empire at that time. So 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.800 enter Claudius, whose full name was Tiberius Claudius Nero, a 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.480 dice playing history buff who was Julia's uncle, which kind 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:44.040 of makes me love him. I loved coming across that 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:50.560 tidbit about him throw the Bones and History book. He 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.320 suffered from partial paralysis and a movement disorder, and he 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.920 spoke with a stammer, according to uh descriptions of him, 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.280 and also had a little bit of a propensity to 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.800 have like a drooling problem, and he allegedly walked with 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:09.360 a limp. He was also known to have uncontrolled emotional responses, 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.600 and he had no political experience until he ascended as 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.040 emperor in the year forty one, after Emperor Caligulo was 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.800 assassinated in the Praetorian Guard. These were the elite unit 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.440 of the imperial Roman army who served as the personal 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.520 bodyguards to the Roman emperors. They named him emperor after 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.080 discovering him in the palace after the death. It would 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.400 be another two days, though, before the Roman Senate would 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.080 accept him into the position, but they did. In forty nine, 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:40.240 Claudius and Julia were married. This was an incestuous partnership 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.120 and that was contrary to Roman law, but that's no problem. 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:48.120 Claudius was the emperor, so he just had the law changed. Uh. 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.160 This union may not have been the first time that 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:55.240 Julia was involved in an incestuous relationship either. Rumors had 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.520 swirled that she had had a sexual relationship with her 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.280 brother Caligulo when he served as emperor, and it was 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.840 swirl again around just exactly how she managed to control 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.400 her emperor's son in the future. I have so many 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.160 questions about that. Like, we know, the name Caligula automatically 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:15.600 comes with like an association of sexual debauchery. But I 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:17.760 also wonder how much of that is just like the 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.480 rumor mill trying to take people down, right, I know, tee, 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:25.000 because I mean he's always assistated with his sisters, But 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.319 I always got the impression sisters inside, like those parties 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:32.640 were way bigger than family. Yeah. Otherwise it's just like 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:40.320 a quiet game of pinuckle. In any case, women in 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.200 ancient Rome at this time worst citizens, but they did 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.000 not have the power to vote or to hold political office, 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.160 and Julia never content with her position pretty much. Ever, 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.640 just assumed the title of Augusta after marrying Claudius, and 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:58.599 that is the Roman imperial yet honorific title given to 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.520 empresses and honored women. Her behavior actually led one of 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:07.120 the Roman statesman and historian Cassius Dio to comment, no 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.000 one attempted in any way to check Agrippina. Indeed, she 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:14.320 had more power than Claudius himself. Yeah uh, sisters doing 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:19.360 it for themselves. Yeah uh. Some historians suggest that the 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:21.840 Roman Senate may have been behind the push for the 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.600 marriage between Julia and Emperor Claudius. As a political way 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.920 to end the feud between the Julian and Claudian branches 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:33.319 of the dynasty. But regardless of the Senate's intentions, Roman 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.439 society still considered this marriage incestuous and immoral and kind 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.920 of gross. So we have to rewind for just a 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:46.960 minute to talk about Claudius's background. Julia here was not 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.800 Claudius's first wife. She's actually his fourth wife. Um and 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.559 Claudius and his previous wife, Valeria Misslina, had had a daughter, 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:59.600 Octavia and a son too, named Britannicus. But upon his 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.560 marriage to Julia, and at her prompting in the year fifty, 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:07.280 which was a year after they got married, Claudius formally 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.319 adopted her son, Lucius Damidius Ahenobarbus, whose name was then 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.920 changed to Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus. This is an 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:20.839 interesting and significant power move, as Julia's son was three 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:25.240 years older than Claudius's biological son, Britannicus, and that made 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:30.160 him the now expected heir to the empire. Okay, the 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:32.280 next step to ascending her son to the position of 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:34.800 emperor would be to get rid of Claudius. Right, So 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.120 it's been jokingly concluded that Claudius ultimately died because of 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.240 dave una x or a nimia, which means one too 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:44.760 many wives. But he died on October thirte in the 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:47.400 year fifty four, and it was room in public opinion 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:49.320 that Julia was the one who poisoned him for the 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:53.679 Imperial Purple. To be clear, Claudius did die of poisoning. 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.600 He had actually ingested a poisonous mushroom, but the facts 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:00.800 of the story beyond that differ depends ding on who 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.040 told it. So, though he may have accidentally eaten a 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:09.320 highly toxic deathcap mushroom at a banquet, most historians agree 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.400 that in the year fifty four, Julia had sought the 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:15.480 help of a notorious poisons expert. It was a local 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:19.079 woman named Locusta, to supply her poison with which to 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:23.880 murder her husband, the Emperor Claudius. It was likely that 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.160 Locusta advised Julia to try a trope a bella donna 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.240 as a poison. And you might already know that as 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.760 deadly nightshade um, and this perennial plant has been used 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:37.520 for poisoning since antiquity. It's highly poisonous, and the plant 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.120 itself and its fruits contained something called tropain alkaloids, which 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.679 are plant toxins. And according to this version of the story, 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.680 it is said that Belladonna was sprinkled on a mushroom 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.280 and given to the emperor with his meal. Um. I 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.560 have read in some accounts that mushrooms were like his 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:59.280 favorite thing. Yeah. So Alternatively, other historical accounts suggest that 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.240 the mushroom may have just simply contained muscarine. That's a 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:06.160 toxin that's commonly found in mushrooms, and that toxin causes 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:10.840 some really nasty effects like vomiting, low blood pressure, difficulty breathing, 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.120 and neurological problems. There's even a third theory that the 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.240 poison mushroom didn't actually appear to work. So um. One 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:21.760 of the royal doctors, doctor Gaius Stratonius Xenophon, then murdered 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:24.920 the emperor with a poison tinted instrument, maybe a feather 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.440 inserted into his throat, as one story goes, to induce vomiting. 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:31.960 But the important takeaway here, no matter how any of 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.960 this actually played out, was that Claudius died from ingesting poison, 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.160 and because she had a great deal to gain from 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:43.240 his passing, everyone believed that Julia had somehow orchestrated it. 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:47.360 Being dead, in all, Claudius could not reinstate his biological 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:50.840 son Britannicus as his legitimate heir to the throne. So 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.839 naturally Julia declares her teenage son as emperor in his place, 0:13:55.200 --> 0:14:00.640 and here we get Emperor Nero with are listening to 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:03.600 the throne as a teenager. His mother was effectively his region, 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.480 and that meant she had political power as a senior 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:11.000 partner in ruling over the Romans. Julia, we should point out, 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.079 is not the only member of the family who had 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.440 an association with poison. There was some cultural sort of 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:22.200 poison acceptance at this time. Just a year into his reign, 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:27.640 like mother, like son, Nero poisoned his stepbrother Claudius's son Britannicus, 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.920 and doing this knocked out any potential competition over the throne. 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:34.600 This seems like a good spot for a word from 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:52.120 our sponsor. It does. Indeed, let's talk about the guy 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:56.680 who Julia was willing to kill for her son, Nero. Nero, 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.200 as we mentioned at the top of the episode, was 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:03.400 Julia's own child, and in addition to his emperor gig 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:10.240 Nero considered himself primarily an artist, with interests including pantomime, dancing, poetry, 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.600 and even playing the liar. He also competed in the 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.360 Olympic Games in near sixty seven in order to improve 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:18.960 relations with Greece UM. But while he was there, he 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.440 raced and he was actually thrown from a ten horse chariot. 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.280 But he was still victorious because he was Nero. That's 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:31.960 like the ultimate participation trophy. Good JOBAI wins it. All 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:37.120 those other horses ran too far the tools. Nero's early 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.720 years on the throne were primarily seen as successful, and 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.800 in the first two years of his reign, Nero's coins 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.560 would depict his portraits side by side with that of 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:51.000 his mother. Overall, though, Nero is of course associated not 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:55.560 with chariot races or with art, but with cruelty. So 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.400 Nero ruled the Roman Empire from year fifty four until 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.800 his death by suicide, which was just fourteen years later. UM. 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.600 He was best known for his debaucheries and pulsiveness, political murders, 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:10.800 and his persecution of Christians, and for allegedly, although it's 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:15.640 not proven in any story, of infamously singing or playing 0:16:15.720 --> 0:16:19.960 music during and maybe even starting the Great Fire of Rome. 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.880 We should point out that fiddles did not even exist 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.640 and wouldn't wouldn't exist for another fourteen hundred years. So uh, 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.400 he did not do that, even though it's quoted beautifully 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:35.880 in an Elvis Costello sock work of pure fiction. Maybe 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:41.520 he sang so astrologers prophesies that Nero would become emperor 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:45.440 and kill his mother. And though you may or may 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:47.840 not believe in astrology, and it could have just been 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:51.120 a pattern recognition based on his family's proclivities from murder 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:55.920 and intrigue. Either way, they were totally right on what 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.560 they predicted. I mean, if I were the Astrologergura'd just 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:04.760 be like a told you guys, check so upon Julia's 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.040 encouragement and so that he could secure his imperial position 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:12.119 while Claudius was still alive. Nero had married Claudius's daughter 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.280 from a previous marriage, so for clarity, he was marrying 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.040 his stepsister Octavia. But Claudius had a change of heart 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.119 regarding his marriage to Julia and his adoption of Nero 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.080 as the years passed in his marriage and he had 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.800 started to again favor his biological son Britannicus as heir 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.600 to the throne, but perhaps not surprising to those following closely, 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:38.399 shortly after Claudius's death, Britannicus suddenly died poison. Maybe no 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:40.800 one can prove that Julia and Nero killed Britannicus to 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.280 remove all of the remaining obstacles between Nero and the throne, 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:49.080 but their murderous reputations do precede them, right and Nero 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.800 is often credited with his stepbrother's swift end, And Julia 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.320 certainly seemed to have made very efficient work of clearing 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:00.399 out any obstacles to her growing power. But thing started 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.280 to go downhill for her after Nero began to assert 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:06.040 himself and play a more interested role in the throne. 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.640 And it would be, at least in part Nero's extramarital 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.159 affairs that would also decrease the amount of power and 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.080 influence his mother had over him. In fact, it would 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:19.080 be her insistent involvement and meddling that would eventually lead 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.520 to Nero's order of his mother's assassination just five years 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:30.120 into his reign. This family the assassination story plays out 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.200 like this. Nero actually tried to assassinate his mother more 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:39.920 than once because she opposed his political and sexual affairs, right, 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:44.639 just like if at first you don't succeed. But because 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.520 she opposed his political and sexual affairs, Nero first set 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:50.840 his mother to sail on a boat that he had 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.200 actually designed to sink. The idea was that she would 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:56.960 cross the Gulf of Naples, and she would sink halfway there. 0:18:57.640 --> 0:18:59.920 Regardless of which outcome of the story, believe, whether she 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.879 was uh picked up by a small fishing boat or 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.720 she swammed to the shore, she actually survived the attempts 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.280 on her life, and he may have then tried to 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:15.200 poison her, yet unsuccessfully again. She finally enter demised, though 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.840 in the year fifty four, when Nero ordered her to 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:22.639 be stabbed to death in her country home. Despite his 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:27.080 generally poor leadership skills, as time war on, nero support 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.159 throughout Rome didn't really begin to crumble, though, until a 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:35.400 Roman governor named Gaius Julius Vindix declared his support for Galba, 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:38.560 then in Spain for Emperor. That effectively meant that he 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.159 was denouncing Nero and igniting a rebellion against the reigning 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:46.480 emperor's tax policies, of which he wanted no taxes. Learning 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.399 that he had been tried in Abstantia and condemned to 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.560 death as a public enemy of the state by the 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.320 Roman senate. Emperor Nero, who was just then thirty years old, 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:59.119 fled Rome, but before he left he called upon you 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.960 guessed it, local poison expert Lokista, as his mother had 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:07.640 to to murder Claudius to acquire poison for his own suicide, 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:10.440 although he ended up not using it in the end. 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.040 It is believed that Nero died by a self inflicted 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:16.520 knife wound to the throat to avoid capture, making him 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.200 the last emperor and putting a close to the Julio 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.920 Claudian dynasty. It is said that his last words were 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.879 what an artist dies in me. Curiously, though there was 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.160 a widespread belief surrounding nero suicide that he actually wasn't 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.679 dead and somehow he would return, he did not return. 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:36.280 Um in any way, This isn't a show about Nero, 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:40.399 but Julia had been suspected of more than having a 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:43.760 hand in poisoning a husband or two, and reportedly her 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.520 crimes ranged from murder which we've talked about, to witchcraft, 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:51.120 uh and even to forcing a man named Statilius Taurus 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:55.640 into suicide. Because she wanted his beautiful gardens all to herself. 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:00.560 I guess you really really loved flowers, right? He had 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.359 that one rose that she just couldn't find anywhere Listen. 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.159 After Claudius's death, Julia had risen so high in the 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.439 royal family that she became the first living woman whose 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:16.240 portrait bust appeared on the imperial coinage, along with that 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.200 of a reigning Emperor Nero. We mentioned that that those 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:23.680 first coins featured him and his mother together. Um Julie 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:26.720 was undoubtedly a woman who followed the family tradition when 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:29.679 it came to intrigue and power grabs. But was she, 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:35.600 as history paints her, a poison happy, murderous, and opportunistic seductress. 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:40.680 Funny thing that right. So, for one thing, uh, During 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:43.840 the time that Julia Agrippina was alive, the words for 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:49.159 adulteress and poisoner were used almost interchangeably, the idea being 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:53.720 that if a woman had sexual agency, she was not trustworthy, 0:21:53.800 --> 0:21:56.119 and it was also assumed that she had a proclivity 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.880 for poisoning. Throw in the fact that there was also 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:02.879 some scientific confusion going on at that time when it 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:07.080 came to, for example, the causes of sickness. Certainly long 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:10.600 before germ theory, um, those kinds of things were often 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:14.920 attributed to poison instead of their actual, not often natural causes. 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:17.320 And when you put all these pieces together, you can 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:21.000 see how, even though it's completely unproven, a reputation like 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:25.840 Julius might have some roots in presumption instead of actual proof. 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.080 Oh and that species of mushroom that killed Claudia's people 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:31.560 today still die from it because it looks like a 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:34.320 totally safe and harmless mushroom that you want to eat, 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:37.760 So it may very well have just been a case 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:42.560 of somebody picking the wrong fungus. We should also say, right, 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:47.840 poison was very popular in Rome, not only among women. Uh. 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:50.879 Worth noting in all of this is that husbands often 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:55.200 poisoned their wives, just account after account of that, like 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:59.480 for various reasons. But there's never any kind of synonymous 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:04.600 associate Asian between the word adulterer or and poison only 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:08.240 adulter s. So we just want to introduce all of 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:11.920 this as food for Thought is totally poison free, we promise. 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:16.359 But that brings us to our final segment of the show. 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:21.399 Uh And now we are gonna do a little segment 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:24.240 that we're calling What's Your Poison, where every week we 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:30.240 will share some concoction related to the topic of the day. Uh. 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:32.600 And this week we have a little cocktail that I 0:23:32.640 --> 0:23:36.520 have invented. We're gonna call it Death by Too Many Wives. 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:39.800 And it's one of those cocktails that I fully expect 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:44.000 to get mixed reactions to. I was not sure what 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:46.560 I would think, but it turned out delightful. So first, 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:48.760 what I did was I made a simple syrup, but 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:52.080 I used brown sugar instead of white sugar. Interesting if 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:54.879 you've never made simple syrup before, you just throw um 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:57.800 equal amounts of sugar and water, so like half a 0:23:57.800 --> 0:23:59.840 cup of sugar, have a cup of water or whatever 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:02.879 measure you want to use, and let that boil. And 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:07.480 then when it finished boiling, I threw in some roasted 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:14.119 garlic and roasted mushrooms and I just lost, like I know, 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:19.199 I know, but I'm telling you come along with me. Um. 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:21.879 And then I let that simmer very low for like 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:24.400 literally just a couple of minutes, and then I steeped 0:24:24.440 --> 0:24:27.399 that in the fridge with a cup of vodka to 0:24:27.520 --> 0:24:30.920 make a liqueur, all in one container for a week, 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:33.359 and then you strain it out and you get this 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:37.560 very very um dark because of the brown sugar and 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:43.120 the roasted components syrupy liqueur, and I just poured that 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:46.280 into a glass and then I put an equal amount 0:24:46.480 --> 0:24:49.719 of club soda in it, and I ended up with 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:55.640 this very interesting mushroomy garlic e cocktail. I don't even 0:24:55.640 --> 0:24:58.160 know what I would call it. It's not really a martini, 0:24:58.200 --> 0:25:00.720 it's not really a it's just a range little thing. 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:03.760 It's a death by too many wives. Uh. So you 0:25:03.840 --> 0:25:06.920 just end up with this interesting like sense of savoriness. 0:25:07.040 --> 0:25:09.000 And there's a little bit of a buttery taste to 0:25:09.080 --> 0:25:12.199 it because it was those those vegetables were roasted. But 0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:15.119 it's really quite bright, and like the first sip is 0:25:15.119 --> 0:25:18.000