50 Roman Mistresses

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  The dynasty that began with Augustus was done. But there was a new one just around the corner.

  INTERLUDE: Enter the Flavians

  Nero was the last of the Julio-Claudians. After he died, Rome had the Year of Four Emperors, in which various blokes (Otho, Galba, Vitellius) tried to grab the throne. Finally, Vespasian, a pragmatic military man, marched in and got himself settled in power. He, with his two adult sons Titus and Domitian, comprised the Flavian dynasty.

  The one thing Flavian women are famous for, above all else, is the distinctive hairstyle of the era.

  My favourite example of the Flavian curled bogan fringe is on the bust of an anonymous Flavian Lady. If you’re in Rome, you’ll find her in a window at the Musei Capitolini, the only well-lit piece of art in the whole place. Go and admire her!

  It’s amazing that they managed to get those curled fringes so high, two thousand years before hair product was invented. Go Flavians!

  23. Sextilia

  Vitellius, one of the so-quick-you-missed-it inbetweeny Emperors, gave his mother the title Augusta so he could support his claim to the throne (which up until that point was pretty much ‘I got here first, ner ner ner’) by being a ‘son of an Augusta’.

  Sextilia was not overly impressed with her son’s achievements. When she heard he was calling himself Caesar (now more of a title and job description than a family name) she said, ‘I gave birth to a Vitellius, not a Caesar’, cutting as only a mother can be.

  According to the same people who brought you ‘Livia poisoned everybody’, ‘Caligula bonked his sisters’, and ‘Nero fancied his own mum’, Vitellius murdered Sextilia, either assisting her suicide or helping her along to fulfil a prophecy that his reign would only be successful if he outlived his mother.

  It didn’t work. He ruled only as long as it took Vespasian to get to Rome and whip Vitellius’ arse out of there.

  24. Caenis

  My love for this particular historical woman is entirely due to The Course of Honour by Lindsey Davis, a mostly fictional story that explains why Vespasian, new Emperor of Rome, was shacked up with a freedwoman (ex-slave) mistress rather than marrying some classy senatorial daughter who would give him posh babies.

  For a start, he didn’t need babies. Vespasian had two adult sons from his first marriage who were all set to be his heirs, and now he was a widower (and, you know, ruler of the world) he felt that he could do whatever the hell he wanted in his private life.

  What he wanted was Caenis Antonia. She seems to have been a sensible, intelligent woman who was Vespasian’s partner and advisor in the manner of Livia to Augustus. He couldn’t marry her legally because you couldn’t if more than one rank separated you—a senatorial class man could marry a middle class woman, but not a mere citizen. And freedwoman was one rank below citizen.

  There are two historical tidbits about Caenis. The first concerns the time that she was a slave, a secretary in the household of Antonia, the niece of Augustus. When Antonia discovered the Sejanus conspiracy, she dictated a letter to the Emperor, telling him of the plot and the danger to his life. Once she had finished dictating, she asked her secretary, Caenis, to forget everything she had just heard.

  Caenis replied that she was physically incapable of forgetting anything.

  The second anecdote concerns Vespasian’s younger son Domitian, who was 20 when his father became Emperor. He once snubbed Caenis by refusing to take her hand in greeting, and this was held up as an example of what an utter bastard he was.

  Which is interesting, considering that Vespasian’s relationship with Caenis was not something you might expect the generally misogynist historians to approve of. But there is no breath of scandal about this woman—just a general impression that she was good for Vespasian, and he loved her.

  Also, The Course of Honour by Lindsey Davis is the best historical romance ever. In case you were wondering about that.

  25. Berenice

  Titus shared his father’s taste in inappropriate women—and he was far less discreet about it.

  Berenice was a Judaean queen, daughter of Herod Agrippa and great-granddaughter of Herod the Great. She was exotic, wealthy and had a substantial army at her disposal. Sounds familiar? Oh, yes. She was awfully reminiscent of a certain other foreign queen from Rome’s past whose name rhymed with Beopatra.

  Titus and Berenice were lovers before his father took power—he was a general during the political and military mess that was the ‘Year of Four Emperors’, but their relationship took on a new significance once his father took on the imperial throne.

  Berenice travelled to Rome to be with Titus, and they lived openly together for some time (he having divorced his wife) but public opinion was very much against them marrying. Not that it was even possible for a Roman citizen to marry a non-Roman officially.

  Berenice stuck it out for a long while, even becoming a member of the Imperial Advisory Council, but politics won out, and when Vespasian died and Titus became Emperor in 79 CE, he reluctantly sent Berenice away. He never remarried.

  26. Flavia Domitilla

  Here’s the thing—Flavia Domitilla was Vespasian’s wife, but she was already dead by the time he came to the throne. Nevertheless, Flavia Domitilla was given a high profile during the reign of her son Titus. She was posthumously given the title of Augusta, and deified. Given that Vespasian was also deified after his death, this made Titus the child of two gods, as well as son of Augustus and Augusta. Nice little status-grabber, that.

  The evidence for most of this is numismatic rather than textual (coins, not words), which is confusing because Vespasian also had a daughter called Flavia Domitilla who died before he came to the throne. So the Diva Domitilla Augusta on the coins could be Titus’ sister, not his mother, and this has led to all manner of historical controversy.

  Which is dumb in all sorts of ways, because as has been previously established, there was heaps of status to be had from deifying and Augustafying your mum (ie: look at me, son of Augusta!) and no point at all in giving the same honours to your sister. And that is all I have to say about that.

  27. Julia Titi

  Titus had a daughter, Julia (born before his family took the Empire, so her name was a coincidence rather than a political statement) whom he promoted throughout his reign as a Good Roman Woman. She was given the title of Augusta while still very young, and appeared on the coinage and in statues looking like a teenager with frizzy hair and a wistful expression.

  Titus died after only a few years in power, and his brother Domitian became Emperor. Julia continued to be a prominent part of her uncle’s family public image, despite the fact that he had a wife to represent Roman Womanhood.

  It was believed that Julia had an affair with Uncle Domitian, and rumours also suggest that her death was due to a botched abortion.

  She certainly died young, and Domitian deified her. While various historical sources mention the rumours about Julia’s relationship with her uncle, they are surprisingly (and pleasingly) non-judgemental towards her. She is not blamed or described in any negative terms (as are, for instance, Agrippina and Messalina, by the same historians). Domitian, generally painted in history as evil, debauched and a Bad Roman Emperor, is blamed for any incestuous impropriety that there might have been.

  Makes a change.

  28. Domitia Longina

  Domitian’s wife Domitia had to put up with a lot. She lost their only living children to childhood illnesses. Her husband was busy being Emperor, was bedding his niece (allegedly) and poisoning relatives (Titus did die awfully young…). He’s also famous for being the one who decided it was a good idea to enact the ancient law about burying Vestal Virgins alive if you think they might not be virgins after all. Not a popular Emperor.

  All this, and Domitia hadn’t even wanted to marry Domitian in the first place. She was married to someone else, and he had ‘stolen’ her from her husband, who was later executed for some mysterious crime or another.

  Domitia finally
got sick of palace life, and ran away with an actor called Paris. Domitian divorced and exiled her, and had Paris killed. Later, he changed his mind and recalled Domitia to his side. They remarried, and were ‘happy’ together until a rebellious plot managed to assassinate Domitian, end his tyrannical rule, and generally cheer everyone up.

  Domitia was credited with an integral role in the conspiracy, and became just about the only woman in Roman history (well, the first 300 years of the Empire) to survive her imperial dynasty.

  Indeed, she stayed on very good terms with the Emperors who succeeded Domitian, and continued to be portrayed in public statuary throughout the rest of her life. Which, by all accounts, was quite peaceful and relaxing compared to what had gone on before. Sometimes there are happy endings.

  INTERLUDE: TRAJAN’S MATRONS

  (or: ‘disgustingly virtuous women of the Adoptive Era’)

  (or: ‘these women had the best PR that money could buy’)

  After the Flavian dynasty died with Domitian, elderly Nerva took the Empire. He didn’t have a wife or children, so he chose the sensible route of just picking an adult whom he thought would do a good job, and making him the heir. That was Trajan, a childless forty-something general with a good head on his shoulders.

  Sadly, without a focus on dynastic inheritance, there was no place for the public image of women in Nerva’s reign. Let’s move on.

  It was during the reign of Trajan that many of the historical sources about the Julio-Claudians were written. There’s a popular theory that the Julio-Claudian women were dealt with so atrociously in the sources as sluts, harridans and poisoners in order to show how modest, virtuous and generally wonderful the women of Trajan’s family were.

  So if you’re looking for the juicy stuff, you might want to go back to some of the earlier chapters…

  29. Plotina

  Plotina was middle aged when her husband Trajan became Emperor. Luckily for her, he had no interest in siring a biological heir, so her marriage was not in danger from any wide-hipped young temptresses (for some reason I keep expecting this to happen, in the vein Henry VIII, but the adoption laws of Rome protected wives from being discarded in the name of fertility—you had to come up with other excuses).

  Plotina was a good woman. Modest, chaste. All those things. We have scads of literary sources telling us how good she was, and what a virtuous wife she was when Trajan was alive.

  However, as soon as Trajan died, Plotina’s literary portrayal changed quickly. In Dio in particular (one of our main historical sources) it’s like a switch has been thrown, so she goes overnight from a paragon of wifely virtue to a scheming, ambitious mother figure in the manner of Agrippina.

  Most people with a vague knowledge of this era know how the pattern goes. Nerva adopted Trajan, who adopted Hadrian, and so on. Except Trajan didn’t adopt Hadrian at all. He never got around to it. He let Hadrian marry Trajan’s great-niece Sabina, which could be read as a move towards creating a dynastic line, but he never formally adopted an heir. He might have had someone else in mind, for all we know.

  When Trajan died, Plotina went to work. She arranged the adoption papers, and retroactively signed them on Trajan’s behalf to ensure Hadrian got the top job. Some of the sources get a bit excitable about this, claiming that she did it out of love for Hadrian, because that’s the only motive a woman could have in the Roman world?

  What rubbish. Isn’t it far more likely that she knew Trajan meant Hadrian for the position, and had been nagging him for months to formalise it, and then had to roll her sleeves up when the time came because Trajan hadn’t bothered?

  Plotina was quite non-threatening as imperial mother figures go. When she died, Hadrian said that she made it easy for him by never asking him for anything he felt obliged to refuse her.

  There are worse eulogies.

  30. Marciana

  Marciana was Trajan’s sister. Many historians ignore her significance, preferring to concentrate on how virtuous or evil Plotina may have been. But Marciana and Plotina had exactly the same social position.

  Romans still didn’t have an automatic status or title for an imperial wife. There were about ten words for ‘Emperor’ and none for ‘Emperor’s special lady’. Historians talk a lot about Roman Empresses, but that’s a cultural concept borrowed from elsewhere. The Romans did not have Empresses. The closest they had was the title ‘Augusta’, which was bestowed upon specific women by the Senate and the Emperor, rather than being a general term. More importantly, it wasn’t only given to imperial wives—as we’ve seen so far, it was as likely to be given to mothers, sisters and daughters.

  An imperial wife only had as much status as her husband chose to allow her, exactly like other women of the imperial family. She wasn’t anyone special purely because of her marriage—until you knew who the next Emperor was going to be, you didn’t know if she was relevant or not!

  Trajan borrowed a leaf out of Augustus’ book and gave the same status to his sister as to his wife. He offered them the title Augusta at the same time, and they both refused it out of modesty. Later, after a socially acceptable period of polite demurral, they accepted the title at the same time and all was well.

  Pliny the Younger, professional toady, wrote a gushing panegyric (sucking up letter) to Trajan, which includes slushy tracts about how awesome Plotina and Marciana are as ladies. He declares that since they share the same status, they are marvellously good and moral for not getting into jelly-laden catfights on the front lawn of the Palatine.

  I’m paraphrasing, obviously.

  At least one historian suggested Pliny was implicitly criticising Trajan for undermining Plotina’s ‘rights’ as an imperial wife by making her share status with Marciana instead of letting her get on with being top bitch. Which is daft. If you’re going to implicitly criticise your boss, a panegyric would not be the way to go about it. Even an ironic one.

  Also, Pliny the Younger wouldn’t get irony if it invited him to the baths.

  31. Matidia

  When Marciana died, well into the reign of her brother Trajan, her daughter Matidia was given the title Augusta, and slotted into her mother’s position as ‘equal-status lady companion to Plotina’.

  Her mother was also deified, and coins were released in honour of Matidia Augusta, daughter of Diva Marciana. This is significant because these are coins celebrating a mother and daughter of the imperial family, with no mention of the Emperor. The only precedent for this were the Diva Poppaea/Diva Claudia Virgo coins of Nero’s reign, but the Marciana/Matidia coins are more significant because one of the women on them is still alive.

  Sadly, Matidia didn’t do anything else of historical note except having a couple of daughters, one of whom—Sabina—was married at the age of 12 to a distant cousin of Trajan called Hadrian.

  And that, my friends, is what we call foreshadowing.

  32. Sabina

  The marital relationship between Hadrian and Sabina is controversial. Some sources portray her (when they bother to mention her at all) as a jealous woman who ensured she never bore Hadrian a child because of his love for men. Others suggest that her relationship with both Hadrian and his male lover Antinous was cordial—both Sabina and Antinous joined Hadrian on many of his travels, something one would not expect from a wife whose marriage was not at least friendly.

  Indeed, when Antinous died (and had cities and stars named after him, temples built in his honour, etc.), Hadrian mentioned the friendship that his lover had shared with Sabina.

  There are few mentions of Sabina in history, which is unfortunate given that she had a longer public career than any other imperial woman of this Adoptive era. We know that Sabina did not receive the title Augusta until the age of forty, nearly two decades after her husband became Emperor. Some historians have seized upon this as being significant evidence of Hadrian’s disdain of her—though it is more likely that he was trying to preserve the ‘mature’ connotations of the title, which she received at a similar age a
s had her mother, grandmother and her great aunt-in-law Plotina. That, and the title Augusta has often been associated with the Emperor’s title Pater Patriae, which Hadrian only accepted on his own behalf in the same year that Sabina became Augusta.

  Like Antinous, Sabina predeceased Hadrian, and he deified her. Unlike Antinous, her deification became part of official state propaganda. When Hadrian adopted his own adult male heir, Antoninus Pius, Diva Sabina was included in Antoninus’ own propaganda as his ‘mother’.

  I know. They’re a bit dull, the Adoptive Era women, aren’t they? It’s all modest draperies and not poisoning each other, I’m afraid. There is a vague rumour that Sabina pushed Antinous into the Nile, but it’s not very credible.

  Let’s take a moment though to admire the fierce hairstyles of this era.

  33. Faustina Major

  When Antoninus Pius was adopted as Hadrian’s heir, he already had a wife and daughter: Faustina Major and Faustina Minor.

  A condition of Antoninus’ adoption was that he in turn adopt two heirs chosen by Hadrian: Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. Marcus Aurelius and Faustina then managed to break the adoptive tradition of the Emperors by having a son of their own. And what a son! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

  Antoninus’s wife Faustina Major didn’t make much of an impact on the imperial family, as she died within a couple of years of her husband’s accession. She is notable for getting the title of Augusta almost immediately, making her the first imperial wife since Domitia who didn’t have to wait years for this honour.