Livia's old age was embittered to herself, and still more discredited with many of her contemporaries, by a new phase of the old feud which had for so long rent the imperial family. Agrippina, the daughter of Julia and Agrippa, had been married to Germanicus, the son of Antonia and the elder Drusus. In the wedded life of these two was exemplified an excellence of conjugal union that was almost perfect. Germanicus was a brave and able soldier and a man whose moral character was far superior to the standard of his time. Agrippina was a woman whose purity of life was worthy of the principles which guided the matrons of the ancient Republic, but whose disposition would not permit her to relinquish any privilege which was open to the women of the new times and warranted by her position. Livia's grudge against Agrippina seems to have been a continuation of the old discord between the Claudian and the Julian branches of the governing house. Each of these women had her adherents, who by their machinations and recriminations made peace an utter stranger in the imperial palace. Livia, however, possessed a threefold advantage over Agrippina: the latter was precluded by her nature from adopting against an enemy any nefarious design--a scruple of which history has been able to discover no trace in the conduct of the former lady; the Augusta was strongly supported in her dislike by the Emperor Tiberius; and Agrippina was away from Rome a great part of the time. She elected to accompany her husband, even on his most dangerous expeditions. On one occasion, when their lives were threatened by the mutinous legions and he urged her to depart to safer quarters, she proudly answered that, being the granddaughter of the deified Augustus, she was not so degenerate as to shrink from danger.