Agrippina the Younger to more modern sources, it is possible (but exceedingly convenient) that Claudius died of natural causes; Claudius was 63 years old. Agrippina was named a priestess of the cult of the deified Claudius. She was allowed to visit senate meetings, watching and hearing the meetings from behind a curtain. In the first months of Nero's reign Agrippina controlled her son and the Empire. She lost control over Nero when he began to have an affair with the freed woman Claudia Acte, which Agrippina strongly disapproved of and violently scolded him for. Agrippina began to support Britannicus in her attempt to
Roman emperor then create a rival lineage of Roman emperors in western Europe, the Holy Roman Emperors, which ruled the Holy Roman Empire for most of the period between 800 and 1806. These Emperors were never recognized as Roman emperors by the court in Constantinople. Modern historians conventionally regard Augustus as the first Emperor whereas Julius Caesar is considered the last dictator of the Roman Republic, a view having its origins in the Roman writers Plutarch, Tacitus and Cassius Dio. However, the majority of Roman writers, including Josephus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius and Appian, as well as most of the ordinary people