Agrippina condotta a morire or Dunque sarà pur vero exactly when or where the cantata, to a text by an anonymous author, was first performed, but it is probable that it was one of the many secular cantatas Handel composed for entertainment at the palace of Cardinal Ruspoli in Rome, at some point between 1707- 08. The soloist was probably the soprano castrato Pasqualino Tiepoli. The historical Roman empress Agrippina the Younger, wife of the emperor Claudius, had plotted to make her son by another marriage, Nero, Claudius' heir to the throne and had finally poisoned her husband, according to various Roman historians, to ensure the success of her
Agrippina the Younger word of her survival after the boat sank from her freedman Agermus. Panicking, Nero ordered a guard to 'surreptitiously' drop a blade behind Agermus and Nero immediately had him arrested on account of attempted murder. Nero ordered the assassination of Agrippina. He made it look as if Agrippina had committed suicide after her plot to kill Nero had been uncovered. After Agrippina's death, Suetonius says that Nero examined Agrippina's corpse and discussed her good and bad points. It is said that Nero believed Agrippina to haunt him after her death. The tale of Cassius Dio is also somewhat different. It