A poetic journey through the past of the Roman Empress Agrippina looks toward the future
Agrippina the Younger follows one woman’s study of another, separated by thousands of miles and two millennia but bound by a shared sense of powerlessness. Agrippina was a daughter in a golden political family, destined for greatness—but she hungered for more power than women were allowed. Exhausted by the misogyny of the present, Diana Arterian reaches into the past to try to understand the patriarchal systems of today. In lyric verse and prose poems, she traces Agrippina’s rise, interrogating a life studded with intrigue, sex, murder, and manipulation. Arterian eagerly pursues Agrippina through texts, ruins, and films, exhuming the hidden details of the ancient noblewoman’s life. These poems consider the valences of patriarchy, power, and the archive to try to answer the question: How do we recover a woman erased by history?
Family Tree
Agrippina the Younger
The Rhine
The Palatine Hill
*
Agrippina Becomes the First Noblewoman to Give Birth on Campaign [Becomes the Elder in an Isolated Place Later Named after the Baby Future Empress Agrippina the Younger]
The Palatine Hill
Germanicus’ Recovering Two of Three Golden Eagle Standards
The Tiber
Agrippina, Age Three
The Via Sacra
Agrippina, Age Five
The Mausoleum of Augustus
The Death of Germanicus and the Early Message of Its Approach
The Mausoleum of Augustus
The Cremation of Germanicus
The Lupercal Cave
The House of Livia
Agrippina after Her Mother Tells Her Emperor Tiberius Is Giving Her Over to Marriage
The Palatine Hippodrome
Agrippina, Age Thirteen
After Agrippina’s Wedding to Domitius [as with Custom What Follows]
The House of Livia
The Death of Livia, Empress-Mother
The Island of Capri
The Exile of Agrippina’s Mother by the Emperor Tiberius for Four Years [Until She Dies Where Her Mother Died and a Daughter Will]
Agrippina’s First Pregnancy
The Forum
Agrippina’s Birth of Her Son [the Future Emperor Nero]
*
The Imperial Transition from Tiberius to Caligula
My Theory for Caligula’s Change
If Caligula Had Incestuous Desire [Even Perhaps Action Then from Where for Rare from Nothing]
The Funeral of Drusilla [the One Child of Agrippina the Elder and Germanicus to Die without Violence]
The Island of Pandateria, Now Ventotene
Caligula’s Changing
Caligula Starts with the Forced Suicide of His Adoptive Son [with Whom He Was Named the Share Power]
The Island of Pandateria, Now Ventotene
The Assassination of the Emperor Caligula
The Cryptoporticus – Palatine Hill
Passienus
When the Empress Messalina Potentially Decides the Son of Agrippina [and Agrippina Herself a Threat]
The Attempted Assassination of Agrippina’s Son During Sleep
The Vatican Museum
Agrippina the Younger’s Marriage to Emperor Claudius [a Braiding of Split Imperial Branches]
Agrippina the Younger [Once with Power Does What She Has Long Desired]
The Material [Marital Benefits for the Empress Agrippina]
The Forum
The Celtic Chieftain Caratacus Captured [Brought to Rome in Chains Paraded Before the Masses]
*
The Augustan Sanctuary and Residential Complex
Future Emperor Nero Assumes the Toga Virilis [His Role as Adult]
The Colosseum
The Death of the Emperor Claudius at Age Sixty-Three [in Its Multitudinous Truths]
The Period of Agrippina Holding Total Power Through Her Emperor Son [Its Briefness]
The Island of Capri
The First Assassination Attempt on Agrippina by Her Son the Emperor Nero
The Second Assassination Attempt on Agrippina by Her Son the Emperor Nero
During the Assassination Attempt on Agrippina in Which Her Maid Acerronia Tries to Survive
The Assassination of Agrippina
The Emperor Nero after the Assassination of His Mother Agrippina
The Bay of Baiae
The Uprising of the Iceni and Trinovantes Tribes [Others Over 200,000 Lead by Tribal Queen Boudica for Her Husband’s Naming His Two Daughters (and Nero) as Heirs When She Became a Widow]
The Great Fire of Rome
Nero’s Domus Aurea
The Death of the Emperor Nero
The Mausoleum of Augustus
Elsewhere
Addendum – Livilla’s Urn
Glossary
Selected/Quoted Bibliography
Acknowledgments
DIANA ARTERIAN is the author of the poetry collection Playing Monster :: Seiche and has twice been a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her writing has appeared in BOMB, The Georgia Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. A poetry editor for Noemi Press, Arterian writes “The Annotated Nightstand” column at Lit Hub. She lives in Los Angeles.
