31. Claudius Was Done in by His Next Wife, Agrippina
Claudius was very unfortunate when it came to marriage. He divorced his first wife, Plautia Urgulanilla, for adultery after she became pregnant by one of Claudius’ freedmen, and because she was suspected of murdering her sister-in-law. His second marriage, to Aelia Paetina, also ended in divorce, because she mentally and physically abused him. His first two wives cheated on or abused Claudius, but at least they did not try to murder him. His third wife did. Valeria Messalina seemingly slept with half of Rome, publicly wed another man while still married to Claudius, and plotted with her lover and bigamous husband to murder her imperial hubby and usurp his throne. That marriage ended in Messalina’s execution. An incorrigible optimist, Claudius married for a fourth time, this time wedding his niece Agrippina the Younger (15 – 59 AD), thirty-three years his junior. That marriage ended with her poisoning him to death.
Agrippina was the granddaughter of Roman Emperor Augustus, and the younger sister of Emperor Caligula. At age 13, she married a cousin, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, and bore him a son, the future Emperor Nero. Ahenobarbus died in 41 AD, and when Claudius executed Messalina in 48 AD, he chose Agrippina as his fourth wife. She convinced Claudius to adopt her son, Nero, and make him his heir and recognized successor in lieu of his biological son with Messalina, Britannicus. By 54 AD, Claudius seemed to repent of marrying Agrippina, and began favoring Britannicus and preparing him for the throne. So Agrippina poisoned Claudius at a banquet with a plate of deadly mushrooms. For the remainder of her life, she jokingly referred to mushrooms as “the food of the gods” (because Roman emperors were deified as gods after their deaths, and by killing Claudius, mushrooms had made him a god).