Nero famously had his mother, Agrippina the Younger, murdered on March 23rd, 59AD. The reasons, apart from the fact that he had gone a bit bonkers by that stage, are quite complicated, but the circumstances in which she died are normally described as ‘uncertain’, which just means ‘Some of this shit is clearly made up’. All of the accounts, however, are as bonkers as Nero was. There are three main accounts, one each from the big dogs of Roman history - Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio.
According to Tacitus, Nero considered the normal route of stabbing, poisoning or just strangling her, but all of these were far too obvious and would just make people mad at him. So he hatched a plot - a self-sinking boat. Of course.
Although she was aware of the plot, she still got on it and, on cue, a rope was pulled and a collapsing lead ceiling fell, which was supposed to crush Agrippina and sink the boat. Only it did neither. So the crew sank the boat themselves, instead.
Agrippina, undaunted, swam back to shore where she was met by a crowd of cheering onlookers. Nero, hearing the news, sent Anicetus, the trierarch Herculeius, and the marine centurion Obaritus, as well as an “armed and menacing column” to kill her. They broke into her bedroom and smacked her over the head with a club. She offered her womb instead with the instruction “Stab me here”, indicating that she knew exactly who was behind this.
They took her up on the offer.
Suetonius’ account says that Nero tried to poison his mother three times, attempts she pre-empted by taking the antidote in advance. Next, brilliantly, he rigged up a trap that would drop ceiling tiles on her as she slept, but she discovered the plan, presumably when a bunch of workmen turned up to install a falling ceiling tile trap in her bedroom. So again, Nero brings out the collapsing boat trick.
In this version, there’s a deliberate collision between her galley and one of his captains who then offers her the trick boat to get back to shore. The boat fails to collapse.
The following day, Nero received word of her survival from her freedman Agermus. He then orders a guard to plant a weapon on Agermus and then immediately has him arrested on a charge of attempted murder, allowing him to implicate Agrippina in the plot.
Cassius Dio’s account has a boat with a secret trapdoor which opens up while out at sea, pitching Agrippina into the waves. Again, athletically, she swims back to shore and so Nero has to resort to something more obvious and just sends an assassin to kill her.
Presumably, during all this weird plotting, Nero either wasn’t aware of how good a swimmer his own mother was, or it just didn’t occur to him that simply having her stabbed to death would save him all the bother of inventing falling roof tile mechanisms and collapsing boats.
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"Okay- get me a victim! Get me a victim! Preferably my mother..."