Quick questions on Agrippina the Younger's role in religion and foreign policy: HSC Ancient History

Roman state religion under the early Principate was inseparable from politics. The emperor was pontifex maximus, the empress an honorary priestess, the imperial family the patrons of the major temples. Imperial women played significant roles: Livia had been priestess of the deified Augustus; Antonia Minor had been priestess of Augustus's cult.

Claudius died on 13 October AD 54. Within weeks the Senate voted divine honours.

The temple of Divus Claudius was begun on the Caelian hill, on a large platform of imperial land. The project was Agrippina's. The temple complex (templum Claudii) was monumental, with a forecourt, podium, and surrounding gardens.

Agrippina's religious privileges extended beyond the flaminate.

The foundation of a Roman colony on Agrippina's birthplace at Ara Ubiorum on the Rhine in AD 50 was the most distinctive of her interventions in the imperial periphery.

Claudius's invasion of Britain in AD 43 was the central foreign policy achievement of his reign. Aulus Plautius commanded the campaign. Claudius came to Britain for sixteen days to receive the surrender at Camulodunum (Colchester).

Agrippina's foreign policy influence was real but bounded.

Anthony Barrett (1996). Treats Agrippina's foreign policy role as ceremonial and reactive. The colonial foundation and the Caratacus reception are propaganda, not strategy.

A grand state funeral on the Augustan model, complete with the imperial family in mourning, ancestral imagines (death masks of the gens), and a public eulogy delivered by Nero.

Written by Seneca and delivered by Nero. Tacitus (Annals 13.3) reports that the eulogy was well received until it touched on Claudius's foresight and wisdom, at which point even the audience could not maintain composure. Seneca was already preparing his Apocolocyntosis, a satire on the deification.

The Senate voted divus (deified) status, a temple, a flamen (priest), and a cult.

Agrippina was created priestess of the new cult. The combination of Augusta (which she had held since AD 50) and flaminica of a deified emperor was unprecedented in Roman history.

Coins of AD 54 to 55 show Claudius being carried to heaven in an elephant-drawn chariot or seated as a god.

Two-horse carriage previously restricted to Vestals.

Right to be honoured on the cushion at the Circus (a sacred privilege normally reserved for the gods and the emperor).