Agrippina (opera) throne, but the ceremony is interrupted by the entrance of Claudius's servant Lesbus. He announces that his master is alive ("Allegrezza! Claudio giunge!"), saved from death by Otho, the commander of the army. Otho himself confirms this and reveals that Claudius has promised him the throne as a mark of gratitude. Agrippina is frustrated, until Otho secretly confides to her that he loves the beautiful Poppaea more than he desires the throne. Agrippina, aware that Claudius also loves Poppaea, sees a new opportunity of furthering her ambitions for Nero. She goes to Poppaea and tells her, falsely, that Otho has
Roman emperor of the Empire, thought of Julius Caesar as the first Emperor. At the end of the Roman Republic no new, and certainly no single, title indicated the individual who held supreme power. Insofar as "emperor" could be seen as the English translation of imperator, then Julius Caesar had been an emperor, like several Roman generals before him. Instead, by the end of the civil wars in which Julius Caesar had led his armies, it became clear that there was certainly no consensus to return to the old-style monarchy, but that the period when several officials, bestowed with equal power by