Plancina

Family: Roman · Role: wife of Cneius Piso · First appears: Annals II (7)

Plancina, a Roman and wife of Cneius Piso, was drawn into Livia’s hostility toward Agrippina in Annals II (7), pursuing her through rivalry and indignities. In II (9), she attended cavalry exercises and cohort manoeuvres, publicly attacking both Agrippina and Germanicus, while some soldiers were encouraged toward disobedience: “everywhere inveighing against Agrippina, everywhere against Germanicus”.

During II (12), her close confidant Martina was sent to Rome as Publius Vitellius, Veranius, and others prepared charges against Plancina and Cneius Piso. At the Isle of Coös, after learning of Germanicus’s death, Plancina immediately abandoned her mourning and put on festive dress. In Annals III (3), she and Cneius Piso were accused of using witchcraft and poison to destroy Germanicus; in III (4), Livia secured her pardon, after which Plancina gradually separated her defence from her husband’s, while Tiberius pleaded for her under his mother’s pressure.

By Annals VI (5), Augusta’s protection and Agrippina’s known animosity had preserved Plancina after Cneius Piso fell. When that imperial protection was lost and she was questioned over the crimes, “she executed with her own hand that vengeance, which was rather too slow than too severe”.