Agrippina

“Let him kill me, so long as he reigns” These are reportedly the words spoken by Agrippina when an astrologer told her that her son, Nero, would become the Roman emperor but he would also murder Agrippina. When making a list of the wickedest rulers, Nero is usually near the top. A bloody Roman emperor who burned Christians during parties. His mother Agrippina has often been blamed for the monstrous reign of her son. Her name has become synonymous with incest, murder, greed, and manipulation. In reality, very little is known about the woman behind the myth. As historian Emma Southon writes in her biography on Agrippina, “As a woman, Agrippina exists only when her actions impact on the lives or actions of men in the political or military sphere because in the ancient world, as a woman, she exists only through her relationship with men.” Agrippina was born into a world of wealth, privilege, and confines. There was no guarantee that she would be remembered by history, she just as easily could have become one of the many faceless and nameless women from Antiquity. However, Agrippina fought for her memory to live on. She was a woman who was trained in the confines and expectations of Roman womanhood and blatantly decided to disregard them. This fact secured her a place in the history books but often not a favorable one. To later historians, her assertiveness, ambition, ruthlessness, and political intelligence made her unnatural, more man than woman.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Om Podcasten

They were adulterers, murderers, mistresses, religious zealots, thieves, and traitors. They were queens, wives, mothers, young, and old. What binds the women together in this podcast is their legacies. These are women who were known during their lifetimes or reinvented after their deaths as wicked women. The lenses of history are often gendered, damning women for some of the same actions that men have been lauded for. The nuances surrounding the women in this podcast were removed in exchange for a one-sided portrayal. Within Wicked Women: The Podcast, I do not attempt to excuse or condone the wrongs committed by these women, instead, the podcast looks at their overarching story and examines the origin of their negative legacy. Alongside a brief biographical overview of the woman, I will be incorporating interviews I have held with experts on the subject to provide multiple and diverse perspectives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.