Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... AGRIPPINA SECOND WIFE OF CLAUDIUS Not one of the Empresses has made more noise than Agrippina. Everything connected with her was remarkable; her birth, her beauty, her faults, her good qualities, and her misfortunes. She was daughter of Germanicus,1 the delight of the Roman people, and of Agrippina, grand-daughter of Augustus, who was delivered of her in a town which was afterwards called the colony of Agrippina, and now Cologne. She was observed to have a double tooth on the right side, which Pliny looked upon as a certain presage of great fortune.1 Agrippina had received from nature all the advantages of body and mind, that would have rendered her a most accomplished princess, if she had not degraded them by making a very bad use of them. Her beauty yielded to none in Rome. She had a majestic air, noble manners, and a lively and enterprising intellect, capable of the greatest undertakings, which she gave proof of in the refined vigor of those curious memoirs, which she composed upon her own adventures,1 and which were of no small service to Tacitus, the historian, when he wrote his Annals. But, on the other hand, her avarice was insatiable,1 her jealousy such as made her capable of the most cruel revenge; and especially, her ambition was without bounds, which was the principal, and perhaps the only cause, of all her crimes and misfortunes. Daughter, sister, niece, wife and mother, of Emperors or Caesars,1 from her cradle she had so violent a desire to rule, that she could set no limits to it. This vice was so ingrained in her very nature, that it corrupted all her actions, and produced in great abundance all sorts of crimes. 1 Tacit. Ann. 12. 1 Plin. hist, nat . cap. 8. 3 Xiphil. in Claud. Agrippina was brought up with her grandmother, ..
