Agrippina (opera) Agrippina (opera) Agrippina (HWV 6) is an "opera seria" in three acts by George Frideric Handel with a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani. Composed for the Venice "Carnevale" season, the opera tells the story of Agrippina, the mother of Nero, as she plots the downfall of the Roman Emperor Claudius and the installation of her son as emperor. Grimani's libretto, considered one of the best that Handel set, is an "anti-heroic satirical comedy", full of topical political allusions. Some analysts believe that it reflects Grimani's political and diplomatic rivalry with Pope Clement XI. Handel composed "Agrippina" at the end of
Roman emperor Emperor Theodosius I's sons Arcadius and Honorius succeeded as co-emperors. Eighty-five years later, following Germanic migrations which had reduced the empire's effective control across Brittania, Gaul and Hispania and a series of military coup d'état which drove Emperor Nepos out of Italy, the idea of dividing the position of emperor was formally abolished by Emperor Zeno (480). The Roman Empire survived in the east until 1453, but the marginalization of the former heartland of Italy to the empire had a profound cultural impact on the empire and the position of emperor. In 620, the official language was changed from Latin