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
Roman emperor of the Romans"). They had also ceased to use Latin as the language of state after Emperor Heraclius (d. 641 AD). Historians have customarily treated the state of these later Eastern emperors under the name "Byzantine Empire". It is important to note, however, that the adjective "Byzantine", although historically used by Eastern Roman authors in a metonymic sense, was never an official term. Constantine XI Palaiologos was the last reigning Roman emperor. A member of the Palaiologos dynasty, he ruled the remnant of the Eastern Roman Empire from 1449 until his death in 1453 defending its capital Constantinople. He was