Re: Cologne, Germany

On 9/19/2024 7:47 PM, MummyChunk wrote:

In A.D. 15, a baby girl was born in a legionary encampment on the
banks of the Rhine River. Her father, the famous Roman general
Germanicus, was engaged in warfare with the barbarians at that time,
intent on recovering the lost eagles of Varus. The girl is known to
history as Agrippina the Younger. She was the granddaughter of
Augustus’ faithful lieutenant Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. She was also
granddaughter by adoption to the Emperor Tiberius.
 Another grandfather was Drusus the Elder who died fighting barbarians
in Germania Superior in 9 B.C. On her mother’s side, she was directly
descended from Augustus himself. Her brother, Caligula, became an
emperor and she was the mother of Nero. She later married her uncle,
the Emperor Claudius. In her honor, her birthplace was renamed Colonia
Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.
 Today the place is called Cologne, Germany (Köln). Some of the Roman
walls of Colonia Claudia still stand
  View the attachments for this post at:
http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=674236879#674236879
 

I have often been thinking about that. It's quite the tenuous connection, isn't it? I mean, she was born there, and convinced her husband to name it after himself when promoting it, but the way it often is told is that it was named after her, when it really wasn't.
People in Germany often seem to misunderstand it as the city being named after her (Colonia Claudia), when that was just the declinated form of her husband's name. I mean, ok, I guess she is named in the last word as one of the people the altar there was used by, but still.