Vibulenus Agrippa

Who was Vibulenus Agrippa?

Vibulenus Agrippa was a Roman knight of the Equestrian rank who was accused of some crime, probably treason, before the senate in the final years of the reign of Tiberius, in 36 AD. His case is often mentioned to highlight the frequency with which ordinary citizens were being executed in that time, and for the novelty of the case's outcome: Vibulenus faced his accusers in the senate and swallowed poison that he had brought with him in a ring.

Undeterred, the lictors rushed his body to the prison and hanged or strangled him anyway, but he was already dead. Unlike an execution, this sort of pre-emptive suicide prevented, at least in theory, the state or his accusers from claiming a share of his property, and allowed the suicide to be buried, provided they died before being convicted. Tacitus does not record whether Agrippa's mock execution in the tullianum was sufficient to satisfy the letter of the law and allow confiscation of his property.