The First Ladies of Rome

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by Annelise Freisenbruch


  108 Wood (1999), 302–4 on Agrippina’s posthumous sculptural tradition.

  109 Tacitus, Annals 14.9.1.

  110 Letters Written in France in the Summer 1790: Helen Maria Williams, ed. N. Fraistat, and S. S. Lanser, (2001), 173 (Peterborough, Ontario Broadview Press).

  111 Tacitus, Annals 4.53.3; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.46.

  112 See Hemelrijk (1999), 186–8 on Agrippina’s ‘memoirs’.

  113 William Wetmore Story, Poems 1:16 cited by W. L. Vance (1989), in America’s Rome (New Haven and London: Yale University Press).

  5 Little Cleopatra: A Jewish Princess and the First Ladies of the Flavian Dynasty

  1 ‘Kleopatra im kleinen’: Theodor Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, V, 540 (1885).

  2 Bérénice, Act IV, lines 1208–9, trans. R. C. Knight (1999).

  3 On the simultaneous appearance of the two works and the tale’s popularity in 17th-century France and Britain, see Walton (1965), 10–16; on the theme of Rome in early modern Europe, see Schroder (2009), 390. See also the appendix of Jordan (1974) for a thorough review of Berenice’s appearances in literature post-antiquity.

  4 Walton (1965), 12. Marie Mancini: see Antonia Fraser (2006) Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun-King, 52 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson); also Schroder (2009), 392. For Henrietta’s involvement, see L. Auchincloss (1996), La Gloire: The Roman Empire of Corneille and Racine (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press), 61–2, citing Voltaire’s preface to Tite et Bérénice.

  5 This account of Agrippa’s activities is based on Josephus, Antiquities 18.6. See also Jordan (1974), 30–48.

  6 Josephus, Antiquities 19.5.1.

  7 Josephus, Antiquities 18.8.2; 19.4.1; 19.5.1.

  8 Josephus, Antiquities 19.5.1.

  9 Josephus, Antiquities 19.8.2 and 20.5.2.

  10 Josephus, Antiquities 20.78.3. On the incest rumour, see Antiquities 20.145; Juvenal, Satires 6.157–8. The marriage with her uncle Herod produced two sons, Bernicianus and Hyrcanus, but little more is known about them.

  11 Macurdy (1935), 246 and Jordan (1974), 113.

  12 The plea for clemency on behalf of Justus dates from the period of the Jewish Revolt: Josephus, Life 65. On the audience with St Paul: Acts 25–6. On Berenice as a woman of wealth, see Jones (1984), 61.

  13 Josephus, Jewish Wars 2.15.1.

  14 Josephus, Jewish Wars 2.16–17.1.

  15 Suetonius, Vespasian 4; Josephus, Jewish Wars 3.1–2.

  16 Josephus, Jewish Wars 3.7.

  17 Agrippa’s Daughter, 234–5 (1981 edition).

  18 The Jew of Rome (1935), 94–5.

  19 Tacitus, Histories 2.2.

  20 Vout (2007), 158.

  21 Suetonius, Nero 35; Tacitus, Annals 16.6.1–2.

  22 Suetonius, Nero 49; Cassius Dio, Roman History 63.29.2.

  23 Suetonius, Galba 5; Barrett (2002), 223.

  24 Suetonius, Otho 1 on links to Livia.

  25 Tacitus, Histories 2.81.

  26 Cf. Crook (1951), 163.

  27 Suetonius, Galba 1.

  28 Suetonius, Vespasian 20–2 on the new emperor’s character and favoured pastimes.

  29 Boyle and Dominik (2003), 4–5 and 10–11 on Vespasian’s populist behaviour and the creation of a new aristocracy of power.

  30 Suetonius, Otho 10.

  31 Tacitus, Histories 2.64 on Galeria Fundana, and 2.89 on Sextilia. Cf. Suetonius, Vitellius 14 where it is said that Vitellius either starved or gave poison to his mother, thus casting him as another Nero. Flory (1993), 127–8 on award of title of Augusta.

  32 Suetonius, Vespasian 3; Cassius Dio, Roman History 65.14.

  33 Cassius Dio, Roman History 65.14 on Caenis’s influence and wealth.

  34 Richardson (1992), 48.

  35 Trans. Kokkinos (1992), 58. The altar was displayed in an exhibition on Vespasian at the Colosseum in 2009.

  36 Lindsey Davis’s official website, referring to her 1997 novel The Course of Honour.

  37 Suetonius, Domitian 12.

  38 See Kleiner (1992b), 177–81 and (2000), 53 on Flavian female portraiture and the absence of a tradition under Vespasian and Titus.

  39 See Varner (1995), 188.

  40 McDermott and Orentzel (1979), 73. Phyllis: Suetonius, Domitian 17.

  41 Cassius Dio, Roman History 65.15.3–4 on Berenice’s arrival at Rome. For arguments over chronology of her arrival and departure, see Braund (1984) and Keaveney and Madden (2003).

  42 Cassius Dio, Roman History 65.15.4; see also Braund (1984).

  43 Juvenal, Satires 6.156–7. Croom (2000), 128 and Roussin (1994), on lack of representation for Jewish costume.

  44 We should not infer that Juvenal was buying wholesale into such disapproving tendencies, but rather parodying the reaction itself.

  45 See Livy, 5.50.7; 34.1–8; Olson (2008), 106. For later citations of the fourth-century Roman matrons, see Hicks (2005a), 43 and 65.

  46 Treggiari (1975), 55.

  47 On Roman jewellery and attitudes to display, see Fejfer (2008), 345–8; Wyke (1994) and Olson (2008), 54–5 and 80f.

  48 Jordan (1974), 212.

  49 Quintilian, Institutio Orationis 4.1.19.

  50 See Crook (1951), 169–70 and Young–Widmaier (2002) for readings of this episode.

  51 Cassius Dio, Roman History 65.15.5.

  52 The Epitome de Caesaribus 10.4 claims that Titus in fact had Caecina killed on the suspicion that he had raped Berenice. This runs contrary to the accounts of Suetonius and Cassius Dio: see Crook (1951), 167. On the reaction to Berenice’s stay in Rome as a whole, see Braund (1984).

  53 Suetonius, Titus 7; also Boyle (2003), 59, n. 180.

  54 Suetonius, Titus 7.

  55 On Berenice’s possible return, see Cassius Dio, Roman History 66.18.1; also B. W. Jones (1984), 91.

  56 Our only possible clue to her movements after this point lies in the 1920s discovery of an inscription in Beirut, recording the dedication there by Berenice of a colonnade: see Boyle (2003), 59, n. 180; Macurdy (1935), 247 and Hall (2004), 63.

  57 Daniel Deronda, chapter xxxvii, 392–3 (New York, Oxford World Classics, 1998).

  58 Cassius Dio, Roman History 66.26.3 and Suetonius, Titus 10. Burns (2007), 93 on the line as a possible lament for Berenice.

  59 Suetonius, Domitian 3.1. Poppaea and her baby daughter Claudia Octavia were both given the appellation Augusta, but there is no evidence that Statilia Messalina, Nero’s third and final wife, received the title. See Flory (1987), 126.

  60 Varner (1995), 194.

  61 Flory (1987), 129–31.

  62 Varner (1995), 194.

  63 Suetonius, Domitian 8. Temple of Minerva: Loven (1998), 90.

  64 Ummidia Quadratilla: D’Ambra (2007), 134; and Pliny the Younger, Letters 7.24.

  65 Boyle (2003), 24f.

  66 Martial, Epigrams 8.36. See Tomei (1998), 45–53 on the Domus Flavia.

  67 Matheson (2000), 73 and 216.

  68 See also Bartman (2001), 10 on how a loosely woven fabric stiffened with beeswax or resin could be used as a mould through which to pull the sitter’s hair.

  69 Ovid, Amores 1.14.1–2 and 42–3. On dyes used in women’s hairdressing, see also Olson (2008), 72–3.

  70 See plates section for an illustration of such a comb from the British Museum.

  71 Juvenal, Satires 6.490.

  72 Lefkowitz and Fant (1992), no. 334 (8959).

  73 Juvenal, Satires 6.502–4. See Fittschen (1996), 42 and 46 on women emulating the empresses’ styles.

  74 Bartman (2001), 7–8.

  75 Bartman (2001), 5f.

  76 See Matheson (2000), 132 and n. 52. See Varner (1995) for full details of Domitia’s portrait tradition.

  77 Kleiner and Matheson (1996), 169 and cat. no. 125. San Antonio Museum of Art: 86.134.99.

  78 Bartman (2001), 8–9.

  79 Cassius Dio, Roman History 67.3.2.

  80 Julia and Demosthenes: Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.11.17; Claudia Octavia and the
flute-player: Tacitus, Annals 14.60. See Varner (2004), 86-7 and Vinson (1989), 440 on sexual misconduct as a pretext for political attack.

  81 D’Ambra (1993), 9.

  82 Wood (1999), 317 on comparison to Livia’s portraits; Kleiner (1992b), 178 on the diadem; cf. Varner (1995), 194–5, who says that Domitia was the first woman to have the diadem as part of official type.

  83 See Wood (1999), 21, n. 35.

  84 Suetonius, Domitian 22.

  85 Cassius Dio, Roman History 67.3.2.

  86 Cassius Dio, Roman History 67.4.2.

  87 Suetonius, Domitian 3.1; cf. Domitian 22. Cassius Dio, Roman History 67.3.2 claims that Julia’s and Domitian’s relationship continued even after Domitia’s recall.

  88 McDermott and Orentzel (1979), 93.

  89 Wood (1999), 318.

  90 Juvenal, Satires 2.29–33. See also Pliny the Younger, Letters 4.11.7.

  91 The sainthood was withdrawn from her by the Roman Catholic Church in 1969. This Flavia Domitilla was the daughter of Vespasian’s daughter of that name.

  92 Cassius Dio, Roman History 67.15.2–4; Suetonius, Domitian 14; Aurelius Victor, de Caesaribus 11. On Domitian’s reflective walls, see Tomei (1998), 48.

  93 Suetonius, Domitian 1 and 17. The bodies of Vespasian and Titus, which had initially been placed in the mausoleum of Augustus, were later transferred here: Johnson (2009), no. 8 in appendix A.

  94 Procopius, Secret History 8.15–20.

  95 Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus 52.4–5, trans. in Varner (2004), 112–13.

  96 Varner (1995), 202–5 and fig. 13, and Matheson (2000), 132.

  97 Varner (1995), 205; McDermott and Orentzel (1979), 81f. For more on brick-stamps as evidence of female wealth, see Setälä (1977).

  6 Good Empresses: The First Ladies of the Second Century

  1 Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian [1951] (2000), 5, Trans. Grace Frick.

  2 Colossus of Memnon: Brennan (1998), 215–7; Hemelrijk (1999), 164–70.

  3 Trans. Lefkowitz and Fant (1992), 10, no. 26.

  4 Hemelrijk (1999), 164 and n. 87 on the erosion of the poems.

  5 For a useful summary of the history of Roman imperial conquest, s.v. ‘Rome’ in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 1329.

  6 On the Historia Augusta’s unreliability: see Goodman (1997), 4–5.

  7 See Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus 7–8; and Griffin (2000), 94–5.

  8 Boatwright (2000), 61; Keltanen (2002), 140f.

  9 Her birthplace is deduced from the fact that after her death, Hadrian erected a basilica at Nemausus in her honour: see McDermott (1977), 195 and Keltanen (2002), 109f on Plotina’s background.

  10 Boatwright (1991), 518 on the arriviste status of Plotina and her cohort.

  11 Cassius Dio, Roman History 68.5.5.

  12 See Roche (2002), 41–2.

  13 Feldherr (2009), 402 points out that Pliny’s panegyric cannot be taken as a straightforward homage to Trajan, but the point about Plotina representing the ideal Roman woman remains the same.

  14 Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus 83.

  15 Roche (2002), 48–9.

  16 Pliny, the Younger, Panegyricus 84.2–5. See McDermott (1977), 196.

  17 Boatwright (1991), 521–3. Note the slight uncertainty over Matidia Minor’s and Vibia Sabina’s full names.

  18 Keltanen (2002), 111 on Pudicitia as a first and Vesta as an unusual association.

  19 Although they do not tend to appear on state monuments: Kleiner (2001), 53.

  20 Fittschen (1996), 42.

  21 Fittschen (1996), 42 on Marciana’s style, and on other female hairstyles from the period not sported by imperial women. Cf. Kleiner and Matheson (1996), cat. no. 21.

  22 Boatwright (1991), 515 and 532.

  23 Cassius Dio, Roman History 69.1; Aurelius Victor, de Caesaribus 13; Historia Augusta (Hadrian) 4.10.

  24 See Bauman (1994), on the tradition in literature and history, beginning with Livia.

  25 Caroli (1995), 148–9 on the Edith Wilson affair; and 164 on the Florence Harding controversy; the book in question was The Strange Death of President Harding: From the Diaries of Gaston B. Means as Told to May Dixon Thacker (New York: 1930).

  26 Historia Augusta (Hadrian) 2.10.

  27 Trans. P. J. Alexander (1938), ‘Letters and speeches of the Emperor Hadrian’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 49: 160–1, with modifications after Hemelrijk (1999), 117.

  28 Trans. J. H. Oliver (1989), Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors from Inscriptions and Papyri, 177 (Document 73), (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society)

  29 See also Boatwright (1991), 531.

  30 Lucian, de Mercede Conductis 33–4.

  31 Hemelrijk (1999), 37–41 and 51–2 on attitudes to philosophy and women’s learning.

  32 Boatwright (1991), 521 on Plotina’s brickworks. For her coins, see Keltanen (2002), 113.

  33 Cassius Dio, Roman History 69.10.3. Plotina’s ashes: Kleiner (1992b), 262.

  34 Keltanen (2002), 114, n. 55; Boatwright (1991), 533; Opper (2008), 211–12.

  35 Opper (2008), 211. See Davies (200), 118; Opper (2008), 211

  36 See Davies (2000), 118; Opper (2008), 211.

  37 Boatwright (1991), 522 and Hemelrijk (1999), 120–1.

  38 Opper (2008), 242f.

  39 Historia Augusta (Hadrian) 11.3; Epitome de Caesaribus 14.8.

  40 Lefkowitz and Fant (1992), no. 186.

  41 Boatwright (1991), 523.

  42 Historia Augusta (Hadrian) 11.3.

  43 Burns (2007), 135. For more modern verdicts on Sabina, see Burns (2007), 125–6, citing M. Grant (1975), Twelve Caesars, 2 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons); also Perowne (1974), 117; Royston Lambert (1984), Beloved of God: the Story of Hadrian and Antinous, 39 (London: Phoenix). My thanks to Carrie Vout for pointing out this last example to me.

  44 Keltanen (2002), 118 and Kleiner (1992b), 241–2.

  45 Brennan (1998), 233 and n. 73 on number in entourage. On sources for Hadrian’s and Antinous’s relationship, see Vout (2007), 54f.

  46 Vout (2007), 18 on the power differential in male sexual relations.

  47 On same-sex emperor relationships, such as that of Nero and Sporus, see Vout (2007), 18 and 138, and chapter two on Hadrian and Antinous and the creation of the latter’s legend.

  48 Brennan (1998), 221 and n. 34.

  49 See Vout (2007), 54–6 on various explanations for Antinous’s death.

  50 Cassius Dio, Roman History 69.11.5.

  51 On dating of the poems, see Hemelrijk (1999), 164–8.

  52 We should note that Sulpicia’s authorship is disputed.

  53 Hemelrijk (1999), 177 and n. 134.

  54 Hemelrijk (1999), 168, citing E. Bowie (1990) ‘Greek Poetry in the Antonine Age’, in D. A. Russell, ed., Antonine Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 62.

  55 Brennan (1998), 229f suggests Damo could have been Claudia Damo of Athens and that she was one of Hadrian’s entourage.

  56 Hemelrijk (1999), 118.

  57 Historia Augusta (Hadrian) 23.9.

  58 On this relief, see Davies (2000), 105–6; Kleiner (1992b), 254; Beard and Henderson (1998), 213–14.

  59 Keltanen (2002), 124.

  60 Opper (2008), 59 on this theory.

  61 Davies (2000), 109.

  62 S. Perowne (1960), Hadrian (London: Hodder & Stoughton), 117.

  63 Historia Augusta (Antoninus Pius) 5.2 and 6.4–6; Birley (2000a), 47.

  64 Birley (2000a), 28f on the family background of the gens Annia, including on possible family links to Scribonia and Salonia Matidia.

  65 Birley (2000b), 151.

  66 See Freisenbruch (2004), for an overview of Fronto’s letters.

  67 Fronto to Marcus Aurelius: Vol. 1, p. 183 of Haines.

  68 Marcus Aurelius to Fronto: Vol. 1, p. 197 of Haines.

  69 Marcus Aurelius to Fronto: Vol. 1, p. 115 of Haines.

  70 Fronto to Marcus Aurelius: Vol. 1, p. 125 of Haines.

  71
Discourse on Love, 9: Vol. 1, p. 29 of Haines. Domitia Lucilla on philosophy: Historia Augusta (Marcus Aurelius) 2.6. See Hemelrijk (1999), 68–9 on role of mothers in sons’ education.

  72 Van den Hout (1999), 56, n. 21.15.

  73 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 1.3

  74 Fronto to Marcus Aurelius: Vol. II, pp. 119–20 of Haines. On Marcus’s and Faustina’s children, see Appendix 2F in Birley (2000a).

  75 Historia Augusta (Antoninus Pius) 6.7–8 and 8.1; Keltanen (2002), 128; Davies (2000), 109.

  76 Keltanen (2002), 126–7; cf. Beard and Henderson (1998), 217.

  77 Keltanen (2002), 128–32 on Antoninus’s and Annia Galeria’s marriage as a model. Antoninus’s letter to Fronto: Vol. 1, p. 129 of Haines.

  78 On the apotheosis relief, see Kleiner (1992b), 287–8; Beard and Henderson (1998), 193–4 and 217–19.

  79 Fittschen (1996), 44.

  80 Keltanen (2002), 135.

  81 Cassius Dio, Roman History 71.1.3.

  82 Boatwright (1991), 522 on possible location of Matidia’s residence. Marcus Aurelius to Fronto on his daughters staying with Matidia: Vol. 1, p. 301 of Haines.

  83 Historia Augusta (Marcus Aurelius) 9.4–6 and 20.7; Historia Augusta (Verus) 7.7.

  84 Historia Augusta (Marcus Aurelius) 20.6–7; Cassius Dio, Roman History 73.4.5.

  85 Cassius Dio, Roman History 72.10.5; Historia Augusta (Marcus Aurelius) 17.4; 26.8.

  86 Historia Augusta (Marcus Aurelius) 26.5; Cassius Dio, Roman History 71.29.1. On Faustina’s probable age, see Birley (2000), 34–5.

  87 Cassius Dio, Roman History 72.29; Historia Augusta (Marcus Aurelius) 19.1–9; Historia Augusta (Verus) 10.1.

  88 Keltanen (2002), 138–40; Davies (2000), 109.

  89 Cassius Dio, Roman History, 73.4.5–6; Herodian 1.8.3–5.

  7 The Philosopher Empress: Julia Domna and the ‘Syrian Matriarchy’

  1 Syrian matriarchy: Balsdon (1962), 156; I. Shahid (1984) (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oats Research Library and Collection), Rome and the Arabs, 42; W. Ball (2000), 415; Burns (2007), 201.

  2 Caracalla’s last words to his mother Julia Domna: Cassius Dio, Roman History 78.2.3.

 

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