The First Ladies of Rome

by Annelise Freisenbruch

45 Erhart (1978), 194.

  46 Antonia’s Wilton House portrait: see Erhart (1978); Wood (1999), 158–62; Kokkinos (2002), 122–5; Kleiner and Matheson (1996), 60.

  47 On the statue group at Lepcis Magna: Kokkinos (2002), 109–10; Wood (1999), 110–11; Barrett (2002), 208; C. B. Rose (1997), 29. Drusus Minor was flanked by his own mother Vipsania, and his wife Livilla.

  48 C. B. Rose (1997), 30.

  49 On Agrippina Maior’s date of birth, see Chapter 2.

  50 Suetonius, Augustus 86. The Senatus Consultum de Gn. Pisone Patre also comments on Augustus’s esteem for his granddaughter Agrippina: see Griffin (1997), 253.

  51 Hicks (2005a), 68; Rendall (1996). Tacitus, Annals 1.33.

  52 See Tacitus, Annals 2.43.6, on Agrippina’s celebrated fertility.

  53 Suetonius, Caligula 8–9.

  54 Tacitus, Annals 1.41. See O’Gorman (2000), 71–2 on similarities between this and Velleius Paterculus 2.75.3 when Livia flees with her infant son Tiberius in her arms. Cf. Suetonius, Augustus 48 and Cassius Dio, Roman History 57.5.2 for alternative versions of the story.

  55 Barrett (1996), 27 on Agrippina’s pregnancy.

  56 Tacitus, Annals 1.69.

  57 Tacitus, Annals 3.33.

  58 Tacitus, Annals 3.34.

  59 See Santoro L’hoir (1994).

  60 Tacitus, Annals 1.69.

  61 Tacitus, Annals 2.41. See Flory (1998) on the presence of women at Roman triumphs, esp. 491–2 on Germanicus’s triumph.

  62 Tacitus, Annals 2.42.

  63 Kokkinos (2002), 17 and 43.

  64 Wood (1999), 145 on this notion.

  65 Tacitus, Annals 2.59.

  66 C. B. Rose (1997), 24–5.

  67 Wood (1999), 217–37 on Agrippina’s portrait types. On curly hair and fertility, see Wood (1999), 130–1 and 228.

  68 Tacitus, Annals 1.33 and 2.43.

  69 Das Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre: see Griffin (1997), 253. See also Tacitus, Annals 4.12.

  70 Josephus is our source for this story, although he gives slightly different versions of it in the Antiquities (17.1.1) and in the Jewish War (1.28.6): in the latter, Livia is actually the go-between for Salome’s request to Herod that she be allowed to marry Syllaeus, but Salome is then forced to marry Herod’s choice, Alexas, against her will.

  71 Tacitus, Annals 2.34.

  72 Tacitus, Annals 4.22.

  73 See Fischler (1994), 126f on attitudes to women’s interference in the judicial process.

  74 Tacitus, Annals 2.43 and 2.55

  75 Tacitus, Annals 2.71–75.

  76 Tacitus, Annals 2.82; 3.3 and 3.6.

  77 Tacitus, Annals 3.10–15.

  78 On the discovery of the tablet, see Eck, Caballos and Fernández (1996); also Griffin (1997), 249–50, and the review of Eck, Caballos and Fernández by Harriet Flower, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 97.7.22.

  79 See Griffin (1997), 258 and Flower (2006), 250 on Tacitus’s factual accuracy; also Kokkinos (2002), 38.

  80 Tacitus, Annals 3.17.

  81 Trans. M. Griffin (1997), 252: lines iii-120.

  82 See also the Consolatio ad Liviam 47–50 for the repetition of the same idea.

  83 C. B. Rose (1997), 26 on the arch marking a milestone for women; see also Flory (1998), 491–2; and Kokkinos (2002), 37–9.

  84 Trans. M. Griffin (1997), 253: lines 136–146. I have amended the translation of ‘Livia’ here to make clear it refers to Germanicus’s sister Livilla.

  85 Tacitus, Annals 3.4,

  86 Drusus Minor’s son Tiberius Gemellus was the fourth possible contender, though see Tacitus, Annals 4.3 where Tiberius claims he would now call on Germanicus’s sons to provide him with support during his rule.

  87 Tacitus, Annals 4.12.

  88 Barrett (2002), 172.

  89 I concur with Wood (1999), 109, who argues that this is indeed a portrait of Livia and not a personification: cf. Barrett (2002), 93.

  90 C. B. Rose (1997), 28.

  91 Wood (1999), 209 on forms of transportation for women; Flory (1987), 119 on accumulation of Vestals’ honours.

  92 Cassius Dio, Roman History 57.12.6 on people saying Livia’s bullying had driven Tiberius to Capri; Tacitus, Annals 4.57 for alternative that it was Sejanus’s intriguing that compelled him to go.

  93 Suetonius, Tiberius 51.

  94 Tacitus, Annals 4.52; cf. Suetonius, Tiberius 53 on Agrippina saying more than was wise about her husband’s death.

  95 My own translation of Suetonius, Tiberius 53; same line quoted in Tacitus, Annals 4.52.

  96 Tacitus, Annals 4.53.

  97 Tacitus, Annals 4.54. See Barrett (2002), 98 on Agrippina’s being placed under house arrest.

  98 See Treggiari (1975).

  99 First World War veteran Henry Allingham, who died in 2009 at the age of 113, put his longevity down to ‘whisky and wild women’, while port was said to have featured heavily in the diet of Jeanne Calment, the world’s oldest woman before her death in 1997 at the age of 122. On the diet and the satirical treatment of the elderly, see Parkin (2002), 253. On Livia’s love for Pucine wine, see Pliny the Elder, Natural History 14.8.

  100 See Barrett (2002), Appendix 5 on Livia’s birth date and death date.

  101 Velleius Paterculus, 2.130; cf. Suetonius, Tiberius 51 and Tacitus, Annals 5.1.

  102 Davies (2000), 103.

  103 Cassius Dio, Roman History 58.2. See Barrett (2002), 188f on Livia’s benefactions.

  104 Cassius Dio, Roman History 58.2; also Cassius Dio, Roman History 54.35.5 and Flory (1993), 305–6 on Octavia’s and Livia’s funeral honours. Tacitus, Annals 5.2 on rejection of deification for Livia.

  105 Caligula and Nero were descendants of Augustus through Agrippina Maior, daughter of Julia; Claudius was linked to Augustus only through his grandmother Octavia.

  106 See Wood (1999), 121–2 on the Lepcis Magna example.

  107 Barrett (2002), 223.

  108 See Claudian, Epithalamium 10, on the marriage of the Emperor Honorius and Maria, whereby the groom gave the bride some of Livia’s jewels; discussed later in chapters four and nine.

  109 Tacitus, Annals 5.1.

  110 Tacitus, Annals 5.3.

  111 Tacitus, Annals 5.4; 6.23; Suetonius, Tiberius 53.

  112 Staley (1965), 10; Duffy (1995), 212.

  113 Hicks (2005a), 45–6.

  114 The Gentleman’s Magazine, 28 December 1800. See Flora Fraser (1986), Beloved Emma: The Life of Lady Emma Hamilton (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), 276–8 on this episode.

  115 Tacitus, Annals 6.26.

  116 Tacitus, Annals 5.3.

  117 Josephus, Antiquities 18.181–2.

  118 Cassius Dio, Roman History 58.11.3–7. Tacitus, Annals 4.11 on Apicata’s role. See Wood (1999), 181–4 on Livilla’s death.

  119 Tacitus, Annals 6.2. On Livilla as the first, see Kleiner (2001), 49–50. On damnatio memoriae generally, see Flower (2006), Elsner (2004) and Varner (2001) and (2004).

  4 Witches of the Tiber: The Last of the Julio-Claudian Empresses

  1 A description of Livia in a review of the BBC’s I, Claudius by Gerald Clarke, in Time magazine, Monday 14 November 1977: cited in Joshel (2001), 153.

  2 Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847), 338 (Penguin Classics).

  3 Tacitus, Annals 14.9.3.

  4 See D’Arms (1970), 134ff on the attractions of the Bay of Naples.

  5 Suetonius, Augustus 64.2, on the letter to L. Vinicius: ‘You were very ill-mannered to visit my daughter at Baiae’.

  6 On the fishpond, see Pliny the Elder, Natural History 9.172. On Antonia’s inheritance of the villa, see d’Arms (1970), 68–9. On the identification of Bauli as Bacoli, and the location of Antonia’s villa, see D’Arms (1970) 181, and Kokkinos (2002), 153.

  7 Suetonius, Nero 5.

  8 Suetonius, Tiberius 75.

  9 Suetonius, Caligula 23; cf. Cassius Dio, Roman History 58.7.

  10 Suetonius, Caligula 27; 32; 37; on death of Tiberius, see Caligula 12; cf. Tiberius 73 fo
r alternative version.

  11 Suetonius, Caligula 15; Cassius Dio, Roman History 59.3.3–5. The inscription from Agrippina’s ash cist has been recovered from the mausoleum: illustration in Kokkinos (2002), 29, fig. 18.

  12 C. B. Rose (1997), 32.

  13 C. B. Rose (1997), 33: on personifications of Securitas, Concordia and Fortuna.

  14 Suetonius, Caligula 15 and Claudius 11.2. See Flory (1993), 123–4 on evidence for posthumous conferral of the title, and the evolving meaning of Augusta throughout the early imperial period.

  15 On Junia Claudilla, see Suetonius, Caligula 12; on Livia Orestilla, Lollia Paulina and the birth of Julia Drusilla, see Suetonius, Caligula 25; on Caesonia, see Cassius Dio, Roman History 59.23.7 and Suetonius, Caligula 25.

  16 See Wood (1999), 211. On promiscuity, incest and poisoning reflecting anxieties about queenship throughout the ages, see Hunt (1991), 123; also Heller (2003).

  17 See C. B. Rose (1997), 35–6.

  18 Kokkinos (2002), 36.

  19 Suetonius, Caligula 23.

  20 On Agrippina Minor’s and Julia Livilla’s exile, see Cassius Dio, Roman History 59.22.8. On Caesonia’s murder, see Josephus, Antiquities 19.2.4.

  21 Suetonius, Claudius 10.

  22 Suetonius, Claudius 11; Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.5.2. See Flory (1995) on the deification of Roman women.

  23 Barrett (1996), 84 on Passienus Crispus’s estate.

  24 Claudius had two children by his first marriage, a son who died in an accident, and a daughter, Claudia, whom he disowned after his divorce from the child’s mother. Claudia Antonia, his daughter by Aelia Patina, was banished during Nero’s reign after refusing to marry the emperor in the wake of Poppaea’s death.

  25 Messalina’s mother Domitia Lepida Minor was the daughter of Antonia Minor’s elder sister Antonia Maior. Messalina’s father Marcus Valerius Messala Barbatus was the son of another daughter of Octavia’s, Claudia Marcella Minor.

  26 Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.22.2 and Suetonius, Claudius 17. On Messalina at Claudius’s triumph, see Flory (1998), 493.

  27 Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.12.5.

  28 Juvenal, Satires 6.117; cf. Wyke (2002), 325, n. 6.

  29 On Dumas, see Wyke (2002), 324, n. 3; on Sade, see Cryle (2001), 283, citing Sade, Oeuvres complètes 9:44; on anti-venereal propaganda, see Kidd (2004), 343-4. See also Wyke (2002), 390 and n. 82 on Messalina as a star of adult films.

  30 Juvenal, Satires 6.117–32.

  31 Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.18.1–3. Augustus too is said to have indulged in similar practices of course.

  32 Pliny the Elder, Natural History 10.172. The world record entry is in A. Klynne, C. Klynne and H. Wolandt (2007) Das Buch der Antiken Rekorde (C. H. Beck Verlag, Munich). I have not seen the volume in question, but its publication was covered in the British press.

  33 Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.8.5; Tacitus, Annals 14.63.2; Suetonius, Claudius 29 and Seneca, Apocolocyntosis 10.4. On Livilla’s urn, see Davies (2004), 103: Braccio Nuovo inv. 2302. On the episode as a whole, see Barrett (1996), 81–2.

  34 On Appius Silanus, see Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.14.2–4; on Marcus Vinicius, see Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.27.4. Other victims included Catonius Justus, a praetorian guard who threatened to inform Claudius of Messalina’s scandalous exploits: see Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.18.3. On Antonia’s granddaughter Julia, the daughter of Drusus Minor, see Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.18.4. See Bauman (1992), 170 on the echoes of Fulvia’s sexually aggressive behaviour in Messalina.

  35 My thanks to Simon Goldhill for pointing this detail out to me.

  36 Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.14.3–4; 60.15.5–16.2 on the machinations of the freedmen; Suetonius, Claudius 29 and Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.18 on the emperor’s being at the mercy of freedmen and wives.

  37 Her reported lovers included the actor Mnester and the freedman Polybius.

  38 Barrett (1996), 88.

  39 Tacitus, Annals 11.11.

  40 Tacitus, Annals 11.1–3; cf. Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.27.2–4. The fact that other women from imperial history, for example, Pulcheria, are said to have eliminated opponents for the sake of a garden or vineyard implies some recycling of stereotypes across the centuries.

  41 According to a news report from The Times, 17 May 2007, mosaic remains of the gardens have been brought to light in excavations 30 feet (9 metres) below the ground, near the Spanish Steps.

  42 This account is based principally on Tacitus, Annals 11.26–38, which gives the fullest account of the episode. See also Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.31.1–5, and Suetonius, Claudius 36–7.

  43 Tacitus, Annals 11.27.

  44 Fagan (2002), and Wood (1992), 233–4 on the possible reasons for Messalina’s fall.

  45 Hunt (1991), 122 on Marie-Antoinette and Messalina.

  46 Flower (2006), 185 and C. B. Rose (1997), 41.

  47 See Wood (1992) and (1999), 276f.

  48 Robert Graves (1934), I, Claudius, 381 (London: Penguin, 2006).

  49 Octavia 266–8.

  50 Ps-Seneca, Apocolocyntosis 11.

  51 Wyke (2002), 335–43 on Cossa’s play, and see here passim for further examples of Messalina’s reception during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

  52 See Ginsburg (2006), 17 on this meeting.

  53 On the incest law, see Gardner (1986), 36–7; and Bauman (1992), 180.

  54 C. B. Rose (1997), 42; Ginsburg (2006), 57.

  55 On Agrippina’s coin portraits, see Wood (1999), 289–91 and C. B. Rose (1997), 42.

  56 Wood (1999), 306–7; Ginsburg (2006), 91f.

  57 Tacitus, Annals 12.7.3,

  58 Tacitus, Annals 12.26. Flory (1987), 125–6 and 129–31 on the changing meaning of Augusta. On Agrippina publicising her son as heir, see, for example, Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.33.9.

  59 Tacitus, Annals 12.27.1. See Barrett (1996), 114–15.

  60 Barrett (1996), 124.

  61 On Agrippina’s sculpture types, and the resemblance to her parents, see Ginsburg (2006), 81; Wood (1999), 297.

  62 Tacitus, Annals 12.37.4; Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.33.7.

  63 Suetonius, Caligula 25.

  64 On Agrippina as a dux femina, see Santoro l’hoir (1994), 21–5, and passim; also Ginsburg (2006), 26–7.

  65 Suetonius, Claudius 18; Tacitus, Annals 12.43 on the grain shortages; Barrett (1996), 121–2 on this period.

  66 Tacitus, Annals 12.56–57; Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.33.3.

  67 Pliny the Elder, Natural History 33.63; Tacitus, Annals 12.56.3.

  68 Tacitus, Annals 12.57.

  69 Tacitus, Annals 12.7.2.

  70 Tacitus, Annals 12.22.1–3; Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.32.4.

  71 See O’Gorman (2000), 71–2 and 129–32 on parallels between Livia and Agrippina Minor in Tacitus’s account.

  72 Claudius’s death: Suetonius, Claudius 43–5; Tacitus, Annals 12.66–9; Cassius Dio, Roman History 60.34.1–3; Josephus, Antiquities 20.8.1.

  73 On the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias, see Smith (1987); also Ginsburg (2006), 89; and C. B. Rose (1997), 47–8, and Gradel (2002), 21.

  74 C. B. Rose (1997), 47. Wood (1999), 293 notes that although Antony and Octavia had been featured in a similar pose, those were issues from Antony’s eastern mints, not Rome.

  75 Cassius Dio, Roman History 61.3.2.

  76 Tacitus, Annals 13.2.3.

  77 Ibid.

  78 Suetonius, Vespasian 9. Gradel (2002), 68: the temple was later destroyed again, though the Forma Urbis gives us an idea of its ground plan.

  79 Tacitus, Annals 13.5.1. Barrett (1996), 150: the practice of the Senate meeting on the Palatine was not without precedent, but certainly such arrangements had never been made for the convenience of a woman.

  80 Tacitus, Annals 13.5.2. There is a striking modern parallel here in that Julia Tyler, the vivacious second wife of tenth US President John Tyler (1841–5) apparently caused offence by receiving guests seated on a raised platform
: Caroli (1995), 46.

  81 Tacitus, Annals 13.6.2.

  82 Suetonius, Nero 52. Santoro L’hoir (1994), 17–25 for more on a woman’s unsuitability for power.

  83 Tacitus, Annals 13.12.1.

  84 Tacitus, Annals 13.12–13; Suetonius, Nero 28 says that Agrippina and Nero consummated passion in a litter, and that he even chose a mistress who looked like her.

  85 Tacitus, Annals 13.1.3.

  86 Cassius Dio, Roman History 61.7.3; Tacitus, Annals 14.

  87 Tacitus, Annals 13.15–16.

  88 Tacitus, Annals 13.18–19. Suetonius, Nero 34.

  89 Tacitus, Annals 13.21.5.

  90 Tacitus, Annals 13.19–22 on whole episode.

  91 On Agrippina’s ownership of Antonia’s villa, see Tacitus, Annals 13.18.5; Bicknell (1963); Kokkinos (2002), 154–5.

  92 Tacitus, Annals 13.45–6; cf. Suetonius, Otho 3.

  93 Juvenal, Satire 6.462. On Poppaea’s reputed habits, see Griffin (1984), 101; on the coincidence of Claudia Octavia’s name, see Vout (2007), 158.

  94 See Vout (2007), 158–9.

  95 The following is closely based on Tacitus, Annals 14.3f; see also Cassius Dio, Roman History 62.12–13.

  96 Tacitus, Annals 14.4.4.

  97 Cassius Dio, Roman History 62.13.5.

  98 Jean de Outremeuse, 14th century: cited in G. Walter (1957), Nero, 264 (London: Allen & Unwin). See also Elsner and Masters (1994), 1.

  99 Tacitus, Annals 14.12.1.

  100 Suetonius, Nero 39. Greek numbers are expressed by letters. If you convert the letters of Nero’s name when written in Greek, into numbers, they add up to 1,005, as do the letters for the Greek for ‘murdered his own mother’: see note to Graves’s translation.

  101 Suetonius, Nero 34.

  102 Octavia, 629–45. The subject of the play is the fate of Claudia Octavia, Nero’s first wife, who was divorced and banished to Pandateria in order that Nero might marry Poppaea. She was later put to death.

  103 Octavia, 609–11. On Seneca’s disputed authorship and the afterlife of the play, see Kragelund (2007), 24f.

  104 Kragelund (2007), 27.

  105 Ginsburg (2006), 80; see also Wood (1999), 251–2.

  106 Moltesen and Nielsen (2007), esp. 9–10, 113 and 133.

  107 See Dean and Knapp (1987), 114–19 on Handel’s opera.