Agrippina the Elder

Agrippina the Elder , d. AD 33, Roman matron; daughter of Agrippa and Julia and granddaughter of Augustus. She was the wife of Germanicus Caesar and accompanied him on his provincial duties. After her husband's death (AD 19), she accused Tiberius of having Germanicus poisoned, and thereafter she was consistently on bad terms with the emperor. Exiled to Pandatería Island in the Bay of Naples, she starved herself to death. Her son Caius Caesar Germanicus became the emperor Caligula .

Seneca, Marcus Annaeus (or Seneca the Elder) (c.55 BC–c.39 AD) Roman rhetorician, born in Spain. Seneca is best known for his works on rhetoric, only parts of which survive, including Oratorum Sententiae Divisiones Colores and Suasoriae. His son, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (or Seneca the Younger) (c.4 BC–65 AD) was a Roman statesman, philosopher, and dramatist. Born in Spain, he was banished to Corsica by Claudius in 41, charged with adultery; in 49 his sentence was repealed and he became tutor to Nero, through the influence of Nero's mother and Claudius' wife, Agrippina. Seneca was a dominant figure in the early years of Nero's reign and was appointed consul in 57; he retired in 62. His subsequent implication in a plot on Nero's life led to his forced suicide. As a philosopher, he expounded the ethics of Stoicism in such works as Epistulae Morales. Seneca also wrote nine plays.