Modern historians, such as Ronald Syme, tend to favour "Vibullius" based on inscriptional evidence.
[4] 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: Agrippa faced his accusers in the senate and swallowed poison that he had brought with him in a ring.
[5][1] Undeterred, the lictors rushed his body to the prison (the tullianum) and hanged or strangled him anyway, but he was already dead.
[6] 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,[7][8] and allowed the suicide to be buried, provided they died before being convicted.
[9] 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.