Who was Agrippina, the first Roman Empress? A Totally Chaotic History with Expert Help from Dr Emma Southon

We simply loved the book 'Totally Chaotic History: Ancient Egypt Gets Unruly' by Greg Jenner and Dr Campbell Price (oh, and with awesome illustrations from Rikin Parekh too!). TCH (anagrams are cool) was a stupendously fun read and felt like a genuine contender for Horrible Histories crown as the go-to history book for kids.

So, when we heard that Dr Emma Southon (one of our favourite history writers) was teaming up with Greg Jenner to write 'Totally Chaotic History: Roman Britain Gets Rowdy!' we simply had to interview her for our blog. And, well, to cut a long story short with little to no anticipatory build-up... we did. Emma was a fantastic interviewee, and we were delighted in her answers about the Ancient Romans, working with Greg Jenner, and, of course, Agrippina - the first Roman Empress! We found the interview fascinating and we know you will too.

That's enough of the intro waffle that no-one every reads - on with the interview!

Dr Emma Southon, probably the coolest historian EVER - sorry Herodotus!

Hey Emma, thank you so much for taking the time out to answer our questions! First, we’d love to know a little about yourself and how you came to study and write about the Romans?

Hiya! I started studying the Romans when I was 16 and did Ancient History a-level. I absolutely fell for how chaotic and decadent and self-satisfied and brutal they were; I think it was reading Suetonius that got me. After that I did a degree in Ancient history and then a PhD and got addicted to researching and writing history. I am still addicted!

You’ve described how you both love and hate the Romans, could you tell us a little more about that? What do you love about them? And what do you hate?

I love that they were a relentlessly pragmatic and stubborn culture, and exceptionally proud of themselves all the time. Sometimes for good reason. They didn’t have a zero but they managed to do maths well enough to build perfect spheres (see: The Pantheon) and aqueducts that could transport water hundreds of miles. That’s impressive. Romans almost never gave up a battle or problem until they had won. They are a model of getting things done and powerful self esteem.

On the flip side, though, they were relentlessly horrible. The level of violence, domination and cruelty in every day Roman life is appalling. They crucified people in the Forum, a lot. They crucified dogs! They enslaved people and relied on that slavery to an extent that should shock people more than it does. They were a brutal, violent culture and I wouldn’t want to hang out with a single one of them.

Roman Britain! An extract from the book, fantastic drawing courtesy of Rikin Parekh

We loved ‘Totally Chaotic History Ancient Egypt Gets Unruly’ and were delighted to learn that you’d be providing expert interruptions on the sequel, ‘Totally Chaotic History Roman Britain Gets Rowdy’. How did working with Greg Jenner come about? And how rowdy did Roman Britain get?

I worked with Greg a couple of times on his podcast You’re Dead to Me and one day he rang me up to try to persuade me to help him write a book about Roman Britain. I think I had said yes before he finished the question because Greg is one of the best people I know and he’s funny.

Roman Britain gets very rowdy. Everyone knows the start of the story with Julius Caesar, and everyone knows that Boudica burned some cities but that’s just the start. Lots of emperors came to Britain and a few of them died here - one from exhaustion after going to Scotland! Constantine the Great was proclaimed emperor in York. And that’s just the emperors!

There are loads of things about the Romans we wanted to ask you about, but we reckon our young readers (and those young at heart parents and teachers) would be fascinated to learn about Agrippina, the first Roman Empress. After all, we hear a lot about Roman dudes in Primary School but maybe not so much about the Roman dudettes, despite them being equally fascinating. Confusingly though (and I promise I’ll get to the actually question of this question soon), there is both an Agrippina the Elder and Agrippina the Younger – what’s the difference between them? (other than the whole Elder/Younger thing!) How do we tell them apart?

Conveniently, Agrippina the Elder is Agrippina the Younger’s mum. So you can call them Mummy Agrippina and Baby Agrippina!

Watch out Gladiator! An extract from the book, fantastic drawing courtesy of Rikin Parekh

That is covenient! So what make Baby Agrippina such an important historical figure? What awesome stuff did she do in her life?

Agrippina the Younger had a really unique relationship to the first few Roman emperors. She was granddaughter, niece, sister, wife and mother to emperors, so she was well connected. And she was the first woman to use those connections to gain real power for herself, rather than feminine influence. She got laws changed so that she could marry her uncle Claudius. She then got him to make her Empress (Augusta) so she could rule alongside him, and she founded a city to commemorate her won birth. That city still exists in Germany; it was called Colonia Agrippinensis in Latin and now we call it Cologne! When Claudius stopped being useful, she killed him and made her son Nero emperor and continued to rule as the Mother of the Emperor. Eventually, Nero got annoyed with her power and had her murdered, but it took several tries and a lot of elaborate ruses because she was seemingly unkillable!

Everyone loves a COW pun! An extract from the book, fantastic drawing courtesy of Rikin Parekh

Was the power she wielded unusual at this time? Were there other Roman women who got to wield power like a lightsaber? 

It was very unusual. She was the only woman to rule as an Augusta and appear in public as a proper empress (in a big gold military cloak at one point!) in many hundreds of years. No woman came close to having the overt power that she had before her or for 200 years after her.

The historical murder mystery Agrippina was involved in is particularly fascinating. Some ancient sources (always totally trustworthy!) state that Agrippina murdered her husband Emperor Claudius with a plate of deadly mushrooms (I like to imagine they were deadly as they were trained in Kung Fu). Though modern historians suggest that it might have been down to natural causes as the reason that Claudius prematurely popped his sandals. What do you think the truth is?

I think that she killed him! Mostly because no historical sources question the story. They all say that she did it, even contemporary sources like Pliny the Younger (who knew Agrippina). We can never know for sure, sadly, but I think she was (like most Romans) pretty ruthless in making sure that her son Nero became emperor.

Boudica must her loved charioteering down those straight roads. An extract from the book, fantastic drawing courtesy of Rikin Parekh.

Like many important figures in Roman History, Agrippina the Younger is kinda hated (or to use a fancy word, reviled) by many Roman writers and historians who came after her. Did she deserve this bad rep? And what do historians think of Agrippina today?

Ancient writers hated her simply because she was a woman. Nothing she did was out of the ordinary for Roman male behaviour but the Romans had very strict gender expectations and she broke those. She did politics and commanded armies and dominated her husband, so she was seen as abnormal and evil.

Modern historians have a more nuanced view. She did a lot of terrible things that mean she was probably not a nice person. For example, she plotted against her brother, she married her dad’s older brother (yuk!), she maybe had her rivals executed and I think she killed her husband-uncle, and she controlled her son. But men did those things all the time without being called evil.

Agrippina very much had her own mind and lived her own life without ever being controlled by a man, which is unusual in the ancient world. So she is very impressive in that respect to us, but it made Roman elite men furious and that fury filtered down into some modern sources. To me, though, she is mostly very impressive, if quite terrifying!

Those pesky Roman Emperors! An extract from the book, fantastic drawing courtesy of Rikin Parekh.

Her son Emperor Nero had a bad time of it too, and is considered one of the 5 Bad Roman Emperors. Did he deserve that label? Were the other Emperors really that much better?

Elite men in the Roman Senate decided who was a “good” emperor and who was a “bad” emperor and the criteria was usually “were they nice to the Senators?” Nero definitely wasn’t nice to Senators and he sometimes killed them, which is pretty bad! He also didn’t do traditional Roman Elite Masculine Things. He didn’t go to war, for example, and he could be intensely cruel to people in his family. He definitely murdered his mum and his step-brother, and maybe one of his wives to. He could be personally violent and despotic to get his way and so the elite people who spent time around him did not like him at all, and they wrote the books.

But Nero liked art and music and theatre, and would perform as a singer in the theatre which made normal people adore him. He was very, very popular with normal people, because he acted like them to an extreme degree. There’s lots of graffiti in Pompeii showing that people really liked him, and after he was overthrown by the army there were lots of False Neros - people who appeared around the empire pretending to be him and gathering lots of support to take back the throne, which suggests at least some people wanted him back.

Other emperors were seen “better”, in that they killed fewer Roman Senators or were nicer to be around but those emperors almost always led very, very brutal wars (for example Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Vespasian) and killed hundreds of thousands of normal people in those wars, so “better” is very dependent on who you ask!

Thanks so much for your time Emma, I could genuinely ask you questions about Ancient Rome all day!

The brilliant cover of Roman Britain Gets Rowdy!

Totally Chaotic History: Roman Britain Gets Unruly is released on 03/10/14 and you should absolutely pre-order a copy by heading over to Walker Books here