Her career from the very cradle had been a career of wickedness, nor had any one of the many fierce vicissitudes of her life called forth in her a single noble or amiable trait.

Born at Oppidum Ubiorum (afterwards called in her honour Colonia Agrippina, and still retaining its name in the form Cologne), she lost her father at the age of three, and her mother (by banishment) at the age of twelve.

She was educated with bad sisters, with a wild and wicked brother, and under a grandmother whom she detested.

At the age of fourteen she was married to Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the most worthless and ill-reputed of the young Roman nobles of his day.

The gossiping biographies of the time still retain some anecdotes of his cruelty and selfishness.