Agrippina and Claudius are married on New Year’s Day, 49.

This marriage causes widespread disapproval.

This is a part of Agrippina’s scheming plan to make Lucius the new emperor.

Her marriage to Claudius is not based on love, but on power.

She quickly eliminates her rival Lollia Paulina.

In 49, shortly after marrying Claudius, Agrippina charges Paulina with black magic.

Paulina does not receive a hearing.

Her property is confiscated, she leaves Italy and on Agrippina's orders, she commits suicide.

Claudius accepts Agrippina’s inducements to adopt the twelve-year-old son Lucius, the product of her first marriage to Domitius Ahenobarbus; Nero, as he will become known, is older than Britannicus and a direct descendant of Augustus.

In the months leading up to her marriage to Claudius, Agrippina's maternal second cousin, the praetor Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus, had been betrothed to Claudius’ daughter Claudia Octavia.

This betrothal had been broken off in 48 when Agrippina, scheming with the consul Lucius Vitellius the Elder, the father of the future Emperor Aulus Vitellius, had falsely accused Silanus of incest with his sister Junia Calvina.

Agrippina did this hoping to secure a marriage between Octavia and her son.

Consequently, Claudius had broken off the engagement and forced Silanus to resign from public office.

Silanus had committed suicide on the day that Agrippina married her uncle, and Calvina is exiled from Italy in early 49.

Calvina will be called back from exile after the death of Agrippina.

Towards the end of 54, Agrippina will order the murder of Silanus' eldest brother Marcus Junius Silanus Torquatus without Nero's knowledge, so that he would not seek revenge against her over his brother's death.

Octavia, the only daughter of the Emperor Claudius by his third marriage to his second cousin Valeria Messalina, was named for her great-grandmother Octavia the Younger, the second eldest and full-blooded sister of the Emperor Augustus.

Her elder half-sister was Claudia Antonia, Claudius's daughter through his second marriage to Aelia Paetina, and her full sibling was Britannicus, Claudius's son with Messalina.

As a young girl, her father had betrothed her to future praetor Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus, who was a descendant of Augustus.

After Octavia's mother was executed in 48, for conspiring to murder her father, Claudius had remarried her paternal first cousin and his own niece Agrippina the Younger, who had a son from her first marriage: Nero (at this time known as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus).

Nero is a popular young man, and his adoption has indeed staved off coup attempts in the second half of Claudius' reign.

Britannicus does not get along with his stepfamily.

According to the historian Tacitus, Britannicus continued to refer to Nero by his birth-name, Domitius, long after the adoption.

However, it must be remembered that this was an accusation, made by enemies of Britannicus.

This included public events where the boys were honored as a pair, and jealousy was heightened by Nero's rise to manhood.

Nero reactsto these slights by insisting that Britannicus is illegitimate, but Claudius gives no indication of believing this.

Tacitus reports that those who had reason to oppose Agrippina and Nero formed a faction around Britannicus, taking advantage of this discord.

Agrippina retaliated against these supporters with force, changing Britannicus' circle.

His tutor, Sosibius, had once been a tool of Messalina's, and Agrippina quickly disposed of him.

Claudius may have agreed to this because of their links to his old officially damned wife.

Such warring factions would have undermined his very reason for adopting Nero and marrying Agrippina.

Agrippina, through her plotting and manipulating, ends the engagement between Octavia and Lucius Silanus, has persuaded Claudius to adopt Nero as his son and heir, and arranges for Octavia and Nero to marry on June 9, 53.

Nero is named joint-heir with Britannicus until such time as the latter comes of age.

The actions Claudius has taken to preserve his rule in the short-term are not easily undone as Britannicus approaches manhood.

In late 54, Britannicus is within six months of reaching manhood by Roman tradition, and has matured early.

According to the historian Suetonius, Claudius began to mention divorcing Agrippina and dismissing Nero now that he was no longer needed.

In preparation, Claudius commends both his son and adopted son to the Senate as equals in his last Senate address.

Suetonius reports that Claudius now admonished his son to grow up quickly, implying that everything would be righted when he assumed the toga virilis.

Sadly for Britannicus, Nero's supporters act to prevent this.

The consensus of ancient historians was that Claudius was murdered by poison—possibly contained in mushrooms or on a feather—and died in the early hours of October 13, 54.

Accounts vary greatly.

Some claim Claudius was in Rome while others claim he was in Sinuessa.

Some implicate either Halotus, his taster, Xenophon, his doctor, or the infamous poisoner Locusta as the administrator of the fatal substance.

Some say he died after prolonged suffering following a single dose at dinner, and some have him recovering only to be poisoned again.

Nearly all implicate his final wife, Agrippina, as the instigator.

Agrippina and Claudius had become more combative in the months leading up to his death.

This carried on to the point where Claudius openly lamented his bad wives, and began to comment on Britannicus' approaching manhood with an eye towards restoring his status within the imperial family Agrippina had motive in ensuring the succession of Nero before Britannicus could gain power.

In modern times, some authors have cast doubt on whether Claudius was murdered or merely succumbed to illness or old age.

Some modern scholars claim the universality of the accusations in ancient texts lends credence to the crime, but history in those days could not be objectively collected or written, so sometimes amounted to committing whispered gossip to parchment, often years after the events, when everyone who cared was dead.

It is not known how much Nero knew or if he was even involved in the death of Claudius.

Claudius' ashes are interred in the Mausoleum of Augustus on October 24, after a funeral in the manner of Augustus.

Tacitus claims that Britannicus and his sisters Octavia and Antonia were locked in their rooms to ensure that no counter claim could be made to Nero's succession.

Nero delivers the eulogy at the emperor's funeral and takes sole power.

Claudius' new will, which either granted joint-rule to Britannicus and Nero or just Britannicus, is suppressed by the new emperor's men in the senate.

Agrippina had sent away the freedman Narcissus, Britannicus' champion according to Tacitus, shortly before Claudius' death, and now quickly murders the freedman.

Britannicus is pushed to the background.

The last act of this secretary of letters had been to burn all of Claudius' correspondence — most likely so it could not be used against him and others in an already hostile new regime.

Thus Claudius' private words about his own policies and motives are lost to history.

Just as Claudius had criticized his predecessors in official edicts, Nero will often criticize the deceased Emperor and many of Claudius' laws and edicts will be disregarded under the reasoning that he was too stupid and senile to have meant them.

Seneca's Apocolocyntosis reinforces the view of Claudius as an unpleasant fool and this is to remain the official view for the duration of Nero's reign.

Eventually Nero will stop referring to his deified adoptive father at all, and realig with his birth family.

Claudius' temple is left unfinished after only some of the foundation had been laid down.

Eventually the site will be overtaken by Nero's Golden House.

Nero had become Emperor at seventeen, the youngest emperor until this time.

Ancient historians describe Nero's early reign as being strongly influenced by his mother Agrippina, his tutor Lucius Annaeus Seneca, and the Praetorian Prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, especially in the first year.

Other tutors are less often mentioned, such as Alexander of Aegae.

Problems arose very early in Nero's rule from competition for influence between Agrippina and Nero's two main advisers, Seneca and Burrus.

Agrippina had tried in 54 to sit down next to Nero while he met with an Armenian envoy, but Seneca had stopped her and prevented a scandalous scene (as it is unimaginable at this time for a woman to be in the same room as men doing official business).

Nero's friends also mistrust Agrippina and tell him to beware of his mother.

Nero is reportedly unsatisfied with his marriage to Octavia and enters into an affair with Claudia Acte, a former slave.

In 55, Agrippina attempts to intervene in favor of Octavia and demands that her son dismiss Acte.

Nero, with the support of Seneca, resists the intervention of his mother in his personal affairs.

With Agrippina's influence over her son severed, Nero has become progressively more powerful, freeing himself of his advisers and eliminating rivals to the throne.

One of Agrippina's favorites, the freedman Pallas, is sacked in early 55 from his job as secretary of the treasury—a post he had held since the reign of Claudius.

According to Tacitus, Agrippina reacted violently to this slight by Nero.

She declared that she repented of her actions to bring Nero to the throne, and would throw in her lot with Britannicus, the true heir who would soon come of age.

She threatened to take the boy to the Praetorian camp, where she would admit to murdering Claudius and Britannicus would be declared emperor.

Nero does not take this threat lightly.

Tacitus recounts Nero's numerous attempts to publicly undermine Britannicus' image.

One such attempt was when Nero asked Britannicus to sing at a drunken party, months before his fourteenth birthday.

Britannicus however, not only avoided humiliation, but also generated sympathy among the guests, after singing a poem telling the tale of how he had been cast aside in favor of Nero.

Tacitus also stated that a few days before his death, Britannicus was sexually molested by Nero (Tacitus Book XIII, 17).

According to Tacitus, Nero moved against Britannicus, employing the same poisoner, Locusta, who had been hired to murder his father, Claudius.

Earlier in 55, Locusta had been convicted of poisoning another victim.

When Nero learns of this, he sends a tribune of the Praetorian Guard to rescue her from execution.

In return for this, she is ordered to poison Britannicus.

The first dose fails, and Nero decides to throw caution in the wind.

Britannicus is poisoned at a dinner party attended by his sister, Claudia Octavia, Agrippina, and several other notables.

The first-century chronicler Suetonius wrote that the assassin avoided being given away by a food taster by adding the poison to his drink when Britannicus asked for it to be cooled, as he felt it was too hot.

The substance was instantly fatal, and Britannicus fell to the floor foaming at the mouth.

He dies on February 11, 55, one day before his fourteenth birthday, less than a month before he is to assume manhood, and just four months after his father's death.

Nero dismisses the murder by claiming that the boy had suffered from epilepsy.

Some modern historians, particularly Anthony Barrett, suggest that he may have indeed suffered from the disease, and that a particularly bad seizure killed him.

After the death of Britannicus, Agrippina is accused of slandering Octavia and Nero orders her out of the imperial residence.

According to Tacitus, Nero protected Locusta by granting her immunity from execution, rewarding her with a vast estate and even sending students to her.

According to Suetonius, Britannicus had been good friends with the future Emperor Titus, whose father Vespasian had commanded legions in Britain.

As part of the Flavians' attempts to link themselves with the Julio-Claudians, Titus will claim that he had been seated with Britannicus on the night he was killed.

He even claimed to have tasted the poison, which resulted in a serious and long illness.

Titus will go on to erect a gold statue of his friend, and issue coins in his memory.

Tacitus states that from this moment Octavia became very unhappy, but learned to hide her affections and feelings around her husband and stepbrother.

Nero’s wife Octavia is meanwhile caught up in the power struggles between Nero and his mother, which conclude when Nero murders his mother in March 59.

Tacitus claims that Poppaea was the reason that Nero murdered his mother.

Poppaea induced Nero to murder Agrippina in 59 so that she could marry him.

Modern sources, though, question the reliability of this story as Nero did not marry Poppaea until 62.

Additionally, Suetonius mentions how Poppaea's husband, Otho, was not sent away until after Agrippina's death, which makes it very unlikely that an already married woman would be pressing Nero to marry her.

Some modern historians, however, theorize that Nero's decision to kill Agrippina was prompted by her plotting to set Gaius Rubellius Plautus (Nero's maternal second cousin) on the throne, rather than as a result of Poppaea's motives.

According to Suetonius, Nero had tried to kill his mother through a planned shipwreck, which had taken the life of her friend, Acerronia Polla, but when Agrippina survived, he had her executed and framed it as a suicide.

The incident is also recorded by Tacitus.

Restrictions are put on the amount of bail and fines under Nero.

Also, fees for lawyers are limited.

There is a discussion in the Senate on the misconduct of the freedmen class, and a strong demand is made that patrons should have the right of revoking freedom.

Nero supports the freedmen and rules that patrons have no such right.

The Senate tries to pass a law in which the crimes of one slave applied to all slaves within a household.

Despite riots from the people, Nero supports the Senate on their measure, and deploys troops to organize the execution of four hundred slaves affected by the law.

However, he vetoes strong measures against the freedmen affected by the case.

After tax collectors are accused of being too harsh to the poor, Nero transfers collection authority to lower commissioners.

Nero bans any magistrate or procurator from exhibiting public entertainment for fear that the venue is being used as a method to sway the populace.

Additionally, there are many impeachments and removals of government officials along with arrests for extortion and corruption.

When further complaints arise that the poor are being overly taxed, Nero attempts to repeal all indirect taxes.

The Senate persuades him that this action will bankrupt the public treasury.

As a compromise, taxes are cut from four and a half percent to two and a half percent.

Additionally, secret government tax records are ordered to become public.

To lower the cost of food imports, merchant ships are declared tax-exempt.

In imitation of the Greeks, Nero builds a number of gymnasiums and theaters.

Enormous gladiatorial shows ware also held.

Nero also establishes the quinquennial Neronia.

The massive Greek-style festival includes games, poetry, and theater.

Historians indicate that there was a belief that theater led to immorality.

Others considered that to have performers dressed in Greek clothing was old fashioned.

Some questioned the large public expenditure on entertainment.

Junia Silana, sister of Caligula's first wife Junia Claudilla, a rival of Empress Agrippina the Younger and the ex-wife of Messalina's lover Gaius Silius, had in 55 accused Agrippina of plotting to overthrow Nero to place Plautus on the throne.

Nero had taken no action at the time, but over time, Nero's relationship with Silana had warmed while his relationship with his mother soured.

After a comet appears in 60, public gossip renews rumors of Nero's fall and Plautus' rise.

Nero exiles Plautus in 60 to his estate in Asia with his family.

Nero's adviser, Burrus, dies in 6.

Additionally, Seneca is again faced with embezzlement charges, and asks Nero for permission to retire from public affairs.

Nero divorces and banished Octavia on grounds of infertility, leaving him free to marry the pregnant Poppaea.

After public protests, Nero is forced to allow Octavia to return from exile, but she is executed shortly after her return.

Accusations of treason being plotted against Nero and the Senate first appear in 62.

The Senate rules that Antistius, a praetor, should be put to death for speaking ill of Nero at a party.

Later, Nero orders the exile of Fabricius Veiento, who had slandered the Senate in a book.

Tacitus writes that the roots of the conspiracy led by Gaius Calpurnius Piso began in this year.

Piso leverages senatorial anger with the emperor Nero to gain power.

Already there is talk among those of senatorial rank, in the nobility, and among the equites that Nero is ruining Rome.

For the first eight years of Nero's rule of the Roman Empire, Burrus and Nero's former tutor Seneca have helped maintain a stable government.

Burrus had acquiesced to Nero's murder of Agrippina the Younger but had nevertheless lost his influence over Nero.

He dies in 62, some say from poison.

Gaius Ofonius Tigellinus, a native of Agrigentum, of humble origin and possibly of Greek descent, replaces Burrus as Praetorian prefect.

Banished in 39, during the reign of Caligula, he had been accused of adultery with Agrippina the Younger and Julia Livilla, the two surviving sisters of the Roman Emperor.

He was recalled by Claudius in 41.

Having inherited a fortune, he had bought land in Apulia and Calabria and devoted himself to breeding racehorses.

In this manner he gained the favor of Nero, whom he aids and abets in his vices and cruelties.

In 62, after rumors that Plautus is in negotiations with the eastern general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo over rebellion, Plautus is executed by Nero.

When his head is given to Nero by a freedman, Nero mockingly notes how frightening the long nose of Plautus was.

At the same time, Nero's cousin, Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix (the second husband of Claudia Antonia, daughter of Claudius), is murdered in Gaul.

Tigellinus had sent assassins to murder Faustus, who was slain at dinner, five days after Tigellinus had given his orders.

Faustus' head was transported to the palace.

At times, Nero will tease Faustus's head, due to his baldness and grayness to his hair.

This unfortunate Sulla Felix is Nero's cousin and his brother-in-law (both men once being married to sisters).

Tacitus described Faustus' character as "timid and despicable" and also stated that Faustus was incapable of attempting to plot against Nero.