Section III (Personalities): Agrippina the Younger

Agrippina the Younger's death, AD 59. The decline from AD 55, the Junia Silana accusation, Poppaea's pressure, Anicetus's collapsing boat at Baiae, the Lucrine villa murder, the Agermus cover story, and the impact on Nero's reign.

Agrippina as the wife of Claudius. The senatorial decree legalising the uncle-niece marriage, the title Augusta in AD 50, the adoption of Nero, the betrothal of Nero to Octavia, the founding of Colonia Agrippinensis, and the elimination of rivals Lollia Paulina, Domitia Lepida, and Statilius Taurus.

Agrippina's pre-Claudian career. Marriage to Domitius Ahenobarbus (AD 28), the birth of Nero (AD 37), the early honours under Caligula, the conspiracy of Lepidus (AD 39), exile to the Pontian Islands, marriage to Passienus Crispus, and return to favour under Claudius.

Agrippina as the mother of Nero. Her engineering of Nero's succession over Britannicus (AD 49 to 54), the death of Claudius (13 October AD 54), the accession, co-rule via coinage and the watchword 'Optima Mater', the death of Britannicus, and Agrippina's loss of influence.

Agrippina's political network. Her alliance with Pallas, the destruction of rivals under Claudius, her appointments of Burrus and Seneca, the AD 54 tribunal incident, and the collapse of her power in AD 54 to 55.

Agrippina's public image. The coin sequence AD 54 to 56 as a barometer of power, the Sebasteion relief at Aphrodisias, the Augusta title, the carpentum, the priesthood of Divus Claudius, Colonia Agrippinensis, and her lost memoirs cited by Tacitus.

Agrippina's religious and foreign policy role. Her flaminate of Divus Claudius from AD 54, the temple of the Deified Claudius on the Caelian, the colonial foundation at Cologne in AD 50, the British triumph and Caratacus, the Armenian succession and Mithridates of the Bosporus, and the limits of her control over external affairs.

Akhenaten's background. Son of Amenhotep III and Tiye, originally Amenhotep IV, the obscurity of his youth, his brother Thutmose, marriage to Nefertiti and Kiya, the six daughters, and the unresolved co-regency debate.

Akhenaten's foreign policy towards Nubia and the Levant. Covers the empire he inherited, the Amarna letters (Great Kings and Levant vassals such as Rib-Hadda, Abdi-Heba and Aziru), the Habiru problem, the Year 12 Nubian campaign and durbar, and the neglect-versus-continuity debate.

Alexander the Great's background, accession and securing of power - born 356 BC to Philip II and Olympias, taught by Aristotle at Mieza, Chaeronea 338 BC, Philip's murder 336 BC, the purge of rivals, and Thebes destroyed 335 BC.

Alexander in Egypt 332 to 331 BC and the eastern campaigns - welcomed as liberator, the founding of Alexandria, the Siwah oracle and the son of Zeus-Ammon claim, the settlement of the empire, the guerrilla war in Bactria and Sogdiana against Spitamenes, the Sogdian Rock, the marriage to Roxane, and rising Macedonian tensions.

Alexander in India and the return - the Hydaspes against Porus (326 BC) and the death of Bucephalus, the Hyphasis mutiny, the descent of the Indus, and the deadly Gedrosian march of 325 BC, weighing Arrian and Nearchus against the vulgate.

Julius Caesar's family background and early career. The patrician gens Julia, the Marian and Cinnan connections, defying Sulla's proscriptions, the corona civica, capture by pirates, and the cursus honorum from quaestor (69 BC) to propraetor of Further Spain (61 BC).

HSC Ancient History Civil War dot point for Julius Caesar. The Triumvirate's collapse after Julia and Crassus died, the 50-49 BC crisis over Caesar's command, the Rubicon, and the campaigns from Ilerda and Pharsalus to Egypt, Zela, Thapsus and Munda.

HSC Ancient History dictatorship and reforms dot point for Julius Caesar. His escalating powers from the 49 BC dictatorship to dictator perpetuo in 44 BC, the reforms (Julian calendar, debt and land laws, colonies, citizenship, the enlarged Senate, public works, the corn dole), clementia as policy, and the honours and monarchy question that set up the assassination.

Hatshepsut's building program. The Deir el-Bahri mortuary temple (Djeser-Djeseru) designed by Senenmut, the obelisks at Karnak, the Red Chapel, the Speos Artemidos, and the purpose of construction as religious legitimation and political display.

Hatshepsut's foreign policy. The Punt expedition (year 9) recorded at Deir el-Bahri, the Nubian campaigns, Sinai turquoise mining at Serabit el-Khadim, and the debate over whether the reign was militarily quiet or actively expansionist.

Hatshepsut's religious policy. The cult of Amun-Re, the Karnak obelisks and Red Chapel, the oracle and divine birth, the Opet festival, the Speos Artemidos restoration claim, and the verdicts of Tyldesley and Roehrig.

Hatshepsut's rise to power. From Great Royal Wife of Thutmose II to regent for Thutmose III, then to co-ruler and pharaoh by around year 7 of his reign, with the divine birth and coronation iconography and the verdicts of Tyldesley and Roehrig.

Pericles' family background and rise. Born c. 495 BC into the Alcmaeonid family, mother Agariste and father Xanthippus, the inherited curse, choregos for Aeschylus in 472 BC, the alliance with Ephialtes against the Areopagus, and his emergence as leader.

Pericles' political reforms - state pay for jurors and officeholders (misthophoria), the 451/450 BC citizenship law, completing Ephialtes' reduction of the Areopagus, his run of strategoi elections, and whether he led or followed the demos.

Pericles and the Acropolis building program from 447 BC - the Parthenon, Propylaea, Erechtheion and Temple of Athena Nike, Phidias as overseer, the tribute-funding controversy (Plutarch, Pericles 12-14), the program as employment and imperial propaganda, and the trials of Phidias, Anaxagoras and Aspasia as attacks on Pericles.

Qin Shi Huangdi's background - born Ying Zheng in 259 BC at Handan, the Lu Buwei paternity story in Sima Qian's Shiji and its reliability, accession as King of Qin in 246 BC aged about thirteen, the Lao Ai revolt of 238 BC, the fall of Lu Buwei, and the rise of Li Si.

Qin Shi Huangdi's standardisation and public works - the small seal script under Li Si, unified weights, measures and the banliang coin, cart-gauges, the imperial highways and straight road, the Lingqu canal, the Great Wall under Meng Tian, and the human cost.

Qin's unification of China. The conquest of the six warring states in sequence from Han in 230 BC to Qi in 221 BC, the strategy of bribery and overwhelming force under Li Si and Wang Jian, the failed assassination by Jing Ke in 227 BC, and the new title Shi Huangdi.

Xerxes' building program at Persepolis: his completion of the Apadana, the Gate of All Nations (XPa), the Hundred-Column Throne Hall, the Palace of Xerxes (Hadish) and the Tripylon, the tribute reliefs as imperial ideology, and his building at Susa.

Xerxes' background: son of Darius I and Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great; the legitimacy dispute with his elder half-brother Artobazanes (Herodotus 7.2-3); upbringing as crown prince; the smooth accession on Darius' death in 486 BC; and early consolidation, read through Herodotus and Persian inscriptions.

Xerxes and the revolts in Egypt (486-485 BC) and Babylon (c. 484 BC) - the Egyptian revolt inherited from Darius and its suppression, the Babylonian revolts under Bel-shimanni and Shamash-eriba, and the disputed destruction of the Esagila, set against the Kuhrt, Sherwin-White and Briant critique.

Xerxes' invasion of Greece, 480 to 479 BC. His motives, the Hellespont bridges, Athos canal and Doriscus muster, Thermopylae and Artemisium, the sack of Athens, the decisive defeat at Salamis, the withdrawal leaving Mardonius, Plataea and Mycale, Xerxes as commander, and the problem of the Greek victor sources.

Akhenaten's death in regnal year 17, the KV55 mummy debate, the succession through Neferneferuaten, Smenkhkare and Tutankhamun, the Amarna counter-revolution and proscription, and the clash between ancient hostile memory and modern historians (Breasted, Freud, Redford, Reeves, Montserrat).

Hatshepsut's death and proscription. The KV 60 mummy identification (2007), the date of her death around 1458 BC, the later proscription by Thutmose III (after year 42), the scope and pattern of the damnatio memoriae, and the historiographical debate over motivation.

Alexander the Great's death - Hephaestion's death in 324 BC and Alexander's grief, the last plans and Arabian expedition, his death at Babylon in June 323 BC aged 32, the natural-causes versus poisoning debate, the succession crisis, and the Wars of the Diadochi.

Evolution of Alexander's kingship - Persian dress and court ceremonial, the proskynesis attempt of 327 BC, the tensions with the Macedonians (Cleitus, Philotas, Parmenio, the Pages), the Susa marriages and the Opis mutiny, and the Tarn versus Badian debate over a policy of fusion.

Hatshepsut's officials. Senenmut's 90-plus titles and disputed relationship with the queen, Hapuseneb as high priest of Amun, Nehesi's Punt expedition, Djehuty's treasury role, Ineni's autobiography, Useramen the vizier, and Dorman/Tyldesley's verdicts.

Evaluating Qin Shi Huangdi - how the entire literary tradition descends from Sima Qian's Han-era Shiji, the Confucian tyrant and book-burner image against the archaeological record, and the modern reassessment of the First Emperor as founder of a unified China (Bodde, Lewis, Portal).

Pericles' death and legacy - his war strategy under strain, the plague of Athens 430 to 429 BC in Thucydides' account, the deaths of his sons, his deposition and re-election, the grant to Pericles the Younger, his death in 429 BC, and the debated Periclean Age.

Caesar's death and aftermath - the Liberators and their motives, the assassination in the Curia of Pompey on 15 March 44 BC, the amnesty debate, Caesar's will and Antony's funeral oration, the failure of the Liberators, Octavian's rise, the Second Triumvirate and proscriptions of 43 BC, Caesar's deification and Philippi in 42 BC.

Foreign policy and the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War - the Thirty Years' Peace of 446/5 BC, the grievances over Corcyra, Potidaea and the Megarian Decree, Pericles' no-concession stance and defensive Long Walls strategy, and whether his policy caused the war.

Akhenaten's religious policies. The elevation of the Aten, the name change from Amenhotep IV, Atenism and the monotheism debate (Assmann, Hornung), the suppression of Amun's cult, and the impact on ordinary religious life.

HSC Ancient History Context for Julius Caesar - the crisis of the late Republic from the Gracchi through Marius and Sulla, the optimates-populares divide, the rise of army-backed dynasts, and the range and limits of the ancient sources - Caesar's own Commentarii, Cicero, Suetonius, Plutarch, Appian and Cassius Dio.

How Pericles turned the Delian League into the Athenian empire - the 454 BC treasury transfer, the phoros and the quota-list inscriptions, cleruchies and the coinage decree, imperial money for the building program, the coercion of Euboea and Samos, and the benevolent-hegemony versus exploitation debate of Ste Croix and Meiggs.

Xerxes' religious policy. Ahura Mazda and Achaemenid royal ideology, the daiva inscription (XPh) and the Herzfeld versus Briant debate over whether it records a real campaign, tolerance versus interference at Babylon, Egypt and the temples burned at Athens in 480 BC, and the royal fire cult.

Qin Shi Huangdi's Mount Li necropolis - the tomb begun c. 246 BC, the 1974 discovery of the terracotta army near Xi'an, the three pits and the estimated 8,000 figures, and what the site reveals about afterlife belief, imperial ideology and Qin organisation.

Evaluating Alexander the Great - why no contemporary narrative survives, how Arrian, the Cleitarchan vulgate, Callisthenes' propaganda and the hostile Peripatetic tradition shape the record, and the modern clash between Tarn's visionary and the ruthless autocrat of Badian and Bosworth.

Evaluating Pericles - the dominant pro-Periclean tradition of Thucydides against hostile contemporary comedy and the much later Plutarch, and the modern clash between Pericles as visionary architect of democracy and Pericles as populist demagogue whose imperialism led to catastrophe.

The hostile senatorial tradition on Agrippina (Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio), her lost memoirs, the coinage and Sebasteion counter-evidence, and modern rereadings by Barrett, Ginsburg and the feminist historiography of Julio-Claudian women.

How Xerxes governed the empire - the satrapy system, tribute and Royal Road inherited from Darius I, the King of Kings ideology of the royal inscriptions, the Persepolis court and royal women read critically, and the continuity-versus-decline debate, via the Persepolis tablets and Herodotus.

HSC Ancient History Context dot point for Akhenaten. Egypt's geography and neighbours, the king's role as upholder of Ma'at, the wealthy empire of Amenhotep III, the power of the Amun priesthood at Thebes, and the talatat, boundary stelae, tombs, Amarna Letters and hostile later texts that form the evidence.

HSC Ancient History context for Alexander the Great - Macedon transformed by Philip II, the sarissa phalanx and the League of Corinth of 337 BC, the Achaemenid empire he set out to attack, and the source problem, since no contemporary narrative survives, only the later vulgate of Diodorus, Curtius and Justin set against Arrian.

HSC Ancient History Context for Pericles - post-Persian-War Athens, the Delian League and its turn into empire, the rise of radical democracy, and the range and limits of the sources - Thucydides and his admiration, Plutarch's late Life, Aristotle, hostile comedy and the tribute and building inscriptions.

Xerxes' last years and assassination in 465 BC, the court conspiracy of Artabanus the chiliarch and the accession of Artaxerxes I, an assessment of the reign, and the clash between the hostile Greek tradition, Persian royal self-presentation and modern revisionist historians (Briant, Kuhrt, Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Wiesehofer).

HSC Ancient History Context dot point for Xerxes: the Achaemenid empire he inherited from Darius I and its extent c. 486 BC, the ideology of Persian kingship, the reign 486 to 465 BC, and the sources - Herodotus, Aeschylus' Persae, the royal inscriptions and Persepolis - with the problem of a Greek-dominated tradition.

Akhenaten's early East Karnak building program and his court officials. The Gempaaten, Hwt-benben and the talatat technique; Ay, Horemheb, Nakht, Meryre, Huya and Bek; their Amarna tombs as evidence; and the verdicts of Redford, Smith, Aldred and Reeves.

Qin Shi Huangdi's administration. The abolition of the feudal fiefs, the commandery-county (jun-xian) system, Legalism under Han Feizi and Li Si, the 213 BC book burning and the alleged 212 BC burying of the scholars, and Confucian condemnation versus modern reassessment.

Hatshepsut's historical context. The early 18th Dynasty, the expulsion of the Hyksos, the reigns of Ahmose I, Amenhotep I, and Thutmose I, the rise of Theban kingship, and the political role of the Great Royal Wife in Hatshepsut's lineage.

Hatshepsut historiography. The Manethonic tradition, Naville's 1890s Deir el-Bahri excavations, the early "usurper queen" view, and the modern revisions by Tyldesley, Dorman, and Roehrig that recover Hatshepsut as a legitimate and effective pharaoh.

Caesar's images, interpretations and evaluation - the problem of the sources from his own self-fashioning Commentarii to the later tradition, his self-image in coinage, clementia and the cult of Divus Iulius, ancient assessments, and the modern debate from Mommsen and Gelzer to Syme, Meier and Goldsworthy.

Amarna art. The break from idealised convention, the Aten as a rayed disc, intimate royal family scenes, the disease-versus-theology debate over the Colossi of East Karnak, Nefertiti's prominence (the Berlin bust, the smiting scenes), and the Neferneferuaten co-regency debate.

HSC Ancient History context dot point for Qin Shi Huangdi - the Warring States period, the western state of Qin and Shang Yang's Legalist reforms, the world Ying Zheng was born into in 259 BC, the reign in outline, and the sources from Sima Qian's Han-era Shiji to the terracotta army and Qin bamboo slips.

Agrippina the Younger's context. The Julio-Claudian dynasty from Augustus to Nero, the political role of imperial women, the legacy of Livia and Antonia, and the prestige of Agrippina's descent from Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder.

Akhenaten's move to Akhetaten. The political motive of breaking the Theban Amun priesthood's power, the religious motive of a pure city for the Aten declared on the boundary stelae, and the function and layout of its temples, palaces and workmen's village.

Caesar's First Triumvirate and consulship of 59 BC. The 60 BC pact with Pompey and Crassus, sealed by Julia's marriage; the agrarian law forced past Bibulus and Cato; Pompey's ratified eastern settlement; Crassus's tax relief; the lex Vatinia; and the allies Clodius and Calpurnia.

Caesar's Gallic Wars, 58-50 BC. Covers the Helvetii, Ariovistus, the Belgae, the Veneti naval war, the British expeditions, the Rhine crossings and Vercingetorix's revolt crushed at Alesia, the wealth and loyal army the war gave Caesar, and the Commentarii as source and propaganda.

How Alexander destroyed the Persian empire, 334 to 330 BC - the crossing into Asia and Troy, the battles of Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, the sieges of Tyre and Gaza, the seizure of Babylon, Susa and Persepolis, and the death of Darius III, weighed through Arrian and the vulgate tradition.

Qin Shi Huangdi's obsession with immortality - the imperial tours and stone inscriptions, the fangshi and Xu Fu's sea expeditions, the mercury elixirs, his paranoia and death at Shaqiu in 210 BC, the concealment by Zhao Gao and Li Si, and the fall of the Qin by 207 to 206 BC.