Nero’s Women: mother and lover

In this article are examined, mainly in the light of literary sources, the figures of Agrippina Minor and the freedwoman Claudia Atte, respectively mother and concubine of the emperor Nero. In particular, in the complex relationship between mother and son, beyond the malevolent gossip that prefigures incest, Agrippina’s desire to consolidate the marriage of her son with (Claudia) Octavia, the latter being the daughter of the emperor Claudius, for eminently dynastic reasons and to consolidate the imperial legitimacy of Nero himself, plays a notable role.

Keywords: Emperor Nero, the Mother, Agrippina the Younger, the Lover, the Freedwoman Claudia Atte.