26 Holum (1982), 57. McCormick (2000), 141 on rarefied atmosphere for empresses.
27 McCormick (2000), 135. Maria’s education: see Claudian, Epithalamium of Honorius and Maria 231–7.
28 Placidia’s education: Oost (1968), 63–4. Girth: see Claudian, Carmina Minora 47–8.
29 On the education of girls in late antiquity, as discussed in Jerome, see Nathan (2000), 152; on Jerome’s advice, see Hemelrijk (1999), 63 and 262, n. 23.
30 Elpidia: see Olympiodorus, fragment 38, in Blockley (1983), 201. Nathan (2000), 150 on nutrices. Olympiodorus refers to Elpidia as a ‘trophos’ – which usually indicates a ‘wet-nurse’, like the Latin nutrix.
31 See Harlow (2004a), 207–12 on Serena’s dress and its future imitators.
32 Harlow (2004a), 214–15 on Stilicho’s dress.
33 Livia’s jewels: Claudian, Epithalamium of Honorius and Maria 13.
34 Claudian, On Stilicho’s Consulship 2. 356–9 on the suggestion of Eucherius’s and Placidia’s betrothal; and Epithalamium of Honorius and Maria 13, 211 and 285 on the bride’s flammeum.
35 I have followed the line taken by Oost (1968), 72–4 on the reasons for Galla Placidia remaining unmarried. On the discovery of Maria’s tomb, see Johnson (2009), 173–4.
36 Olympiodorus, fragment 7.3, in Blockley (1983), 159; Zosimus 5.38.
37 Cooper (2009), 187–8.
38 Olympiodorus, fragment 6, in Blockley (1983), 153. See Heather (2005), 224 and 239.
39 Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 6.18. For more on Eudoxia’s life, see McClanan (2002), 19–20 and Mayer (2006).
40 Antiochus: Holum (1982), 80–1.
41 See James (2001), 42 and Holum (1982), 97 on this dedication. The source is the Chronicon Paschale.
42 Sozomen 9.1.
43 See E. A. Clark (1990), 26f on the significance of such a choice.
44 Sozomen 9.1.
45 Sozomen 9.1.
46 The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu 87.36: cited in James (2001), 18.
47 Richlin (1992), 66.
48 M. Toussaint-Samat (1992) A History of Food (Oxford: Blackwell), 26. See Olympiodorus, fragment 22, in Blockley (1983), 185.
49 Olympiodorus, fragment 24, in Blockley (1983), 187–9.
50 Oost (1968), 104, for example, coyly describes Athaulf as being ‘not without his masculine charms’.
51 Jordanes, Getica 160. See Harlow (2004b), 142; also Orosius 7.40.2 and 7.43.
52 Olympiodorus, fragment 26, in Blockley (1983), 189. See Heather (2005), 240.
53 Olympiodorus, fragment 26 and fragment 30, in Blockley (1983), Vol. 2: 189 and 195.
54 Olympiodorus, fragment 33, fragment 36 and fragment 37, in Blockley (1983), 197–201.
55 Olympiodorus, fragment 23, fragment 26 and fragment 36, in Blockley (1983), 187, 189 and 201.
56 See James (2001), 119–22 on the women who received the title Augusta in late antiquity.
57 See Oost (1968), 165–6.
58 Olympiodorus, fragment 38, in Blockley (1983), 201–3.
59 See Rizzardi (1996), 121, fig. 14 and 127, n. 66. Also Rebenich (1985), 372–3.
60 Holum (1982), 109–11; Brubaker and Tobler (2000), 579–80.
61 On reactions to Pulcheria’s influence, see Holum (1982), 100–1 and James (2001), 66–8.
62 Pulcheria and Mariology: Constas (1995), 169 and 188–9.
63 The Chronicle of John Malalas 14.3–4, 191–3. This is the first and fullest account of Theodosius II and Eudocia’s marriage: see Holum (1982), 114, n. 2 for others.
64 Chronicon Paschale a. 420, trans Holum (1982), 114.
65 Eudocia: see Cameron (1981), 270–9; Holum (1982), 112f and Herrin (2001), 134–5. On Eudocia and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, see M. D. Usher (1998) Homeric Stitchings: the Homeric Centos of the Empress Eudocia (Lanham, MD and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield), 1.
66 Olympiodorus, fragment 38, fragment 39 and fragment 43, in Blockley (1983), 203–7.
67 Holum (1982), 129–30; Rizzardi (1996), 114. See also MacCormack (1981), 228.
68 My translation. On the church, see Oost (1968), 274.
69 Rebenich (1985), 373.
70 See Brubaker (1997), 54, and 67, n. 14–17.
71 Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History 7.24.3. On Placidia’s ‘regency’, see Oost (1968), 194–5 and Heather (2005), 260–1.
72 Brubaker (1997), 61.
73 Heather (2005), 261–2.
74 Holum (1982), 131–2; McCormick (2000), 137–9.
75 Modified from the translation of Holum (1982), 170: translation of Acta conciliorum oecumenicorum I, 1, 3, 14. See also Constas (1995), 173–6 on this episode, and Elsner (1998), 224–5 on the relationship between the Church and the emperor in this period.
76 Theophanes AM 5941: see Holum (1982), 130.
77 Oost (1968), 246.
78 Cooper (2009), 198, on Gerontius, Life of Melania the Younger.
79 Dietz (2005), 125; E. A. Clark (1982), 148; Brubaker (1997), 61–2; Lenski (2004), 117.
80 Holum (1982), 186–7 for more details of Eudocia’s trip.
81 See Holum (1982), 104f; E. A. Clark (1982), 143 and Elsner (1998), 231.
82 See Cameron (1981), 263–7 and Holum (1982), 176f. I have omitted to give details of the elaborate ‘apple’ story here, but the original version comes from The Chronicle of John Malalas 14.8: see Cameron (1981), 258–9 for details.
83 Cameron (1981), 259, citing Nestorius, the Bazaar of Heracleides: 2.2.
84 See James (2001), 15–16 and 23, nn. 36–7, citing The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu 87.1 and Evagrios, Ecclesiastical History 1.21–2. Saturninus: see Priscus, fragment 14, in Blockley (1983), 291 and 388, n. 86 and Lenski (2004), 118.
85 Dietz (2005), 147 and Lenski (2004), 118.
86 Holum (1982), 208–9.
87 Brubaker and Tobler (2000), 580–1.
88 Richlin (1992), 82–3: Patrologia Latina, J.P. Migne (ed.), 54.859–62, 863–6, 877–8.
89 Brubaker (1997), 55 and Oost (1968), 270.
90 See Oost (1968), 290–1.
91 Priscus, fragment 17, in Blockley (1983), 301–3. Honoria’s age: I follow Holum (1982), 1 on the date of Honoria’s affair with Eugenius. Cf. Oost (1968), 282–3.
92 Priscus, fragment 17 and fragment 20, in Blockley (1983), 303–5.
93 Attila’s death: Priscus, fragment 21, in Blockley (1983), 309.
94 Pulcheria’s death: Holum (1982), 216 and 226; Galla Placidia’s death: Oost (1968), 291–2.
95 Johnson (2009), 167–71. I am convinced by his reasoning that Galla Placidia and Theodosius are the two bodies found in 1458. See also the wistful words of Oost (1968): ‘whatever is mortal of her may well still to this day rest beneath the transept floor of Michelangelo’s mighty basilica’ (p. 1).
Epilogue
1 Oost (1968), 307.
2 See Cameron and Herrin (1984), 48–51 for a list of the works of art in the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikoi; also James (2001), 14–15 on Helena as the primary role model for Byzantine empresses.
A Note on Naming and Dating Conventions
Names:
Imperial Roman genealogies are labyrinthine affairs. I have done everything I can to avoid confusion for the reader in trying to give everyone in the book distinct names, though inevitably there are still several female characters with variants on the name ‘Julia’, for example. The family trees I have provided will hopefully prove useful here.
Under the republic, most Roman women used only one name. During the Imperial age, however, it became more common for a freeborn woman to have two names. The first was usually a feminine form of her father’s nomen, or clan name; the second was a version of his cognomen – which identified which branch of the clan he was from. So, for example, Livia Drusilla was the daughter of Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus, and Valeria Messalina was the daughter of Marcus Valerius Messala Barbatus. However, in a break from convention, certain imperial women were also named after
dynastic female predecessors. For example, Livia Julia (known by her nickname of ‘Livilla’) was named after her paternal grandmother Livia, rather than in tribute to her father Drusus’s cognomen of Claudius, emphasizing Livia’s unusual importance in the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
Women did not change their names at marriage. Former slave women who had been freed kept their old slave name, and added on the ‘clan’ name of the family they had served. Thus Antonia Minor’s scribe-woman Caenis later became known as Antonia Caenis.
Families with more than one daughter of the same name distinguished them by using comparative or ordinal adjectives – so Antonia Minor (‘Antonia the Younger’) was the younger sister of Antonia Maior (‘Antonia the Elder’). In the case of the two Agrippinas, however, ‘Maior’ distinguishes the elder Agrippina from her more notorious daughter, Agrippina Minor. It is perhaps more conventional to use the anglicized form ‘Major’, rather than ‘Maior’, but I made the amendment after one of my readers pointed out that Agrippina Major and Agrippina Minor sounded like two pupils at an English public school.
Dates:
If a BC date is not indicated, all dates may be considered AD.
Acknowledgements
Most of my time researching this book has been spent either in the library of the Faculty of Classics in Cambridge, or in the Cambridge University Library. I would like to express my gratitude to the librarians of both these institutions, and to the Classics faculty for affording me the generous borrowing and access privileges of a Visiting Scholar. I am grateful as well to the staff of the British Library and the British Museum for their help with various queries.
I am indebted to Duncan Fowler-Watt for inspiring me with an early enthusiasm for Classics, and encouraging me to apply to study at Newnham College, Cambridge – where I was incredibly lucky to be taught by Mary Beard, Simon Goldhill and John Henderson. Collectively, they have done the most to shape my ideas about the ancient world. All three were also kind enough to read and comment on individual chapters of this book, as did Christopher Kelly and Caroline Vout. I very much appreciate their time and help – any errors that remain are entirely my own. I would also like to express my thanks to Ronnie Ancona, Franco Basso, Paul Cartledge, Pam Hirsch, Daniel Orrells, Adrian Poole and Agnes Schwarzmaier for their assistance with individual queries, and to the two delightful and informative guides, Ulisse and Evan, who respectively shepherded myself and various members of my family around Rome on visits in May 2008 and October 2009.
The Leys School in Cambridge has been my place of work for five of the last ten years. I am grateful for the patience and support of all my colleagues there, especially those in the Classics Department: Elaine Culshaw, Alex Welby - and, above all, Caroline Wiedermann. Thank you also to another friend and former teaching colleague Rod Jackson, who invited me to talk to his pupils at Cranleigh School, allowing me to road-test a few ideas for this book. Many of my own pupils have asked me to mention them individually here – I’m so sorry that I can’t, but, more than you know, you have kept me sane by giving me something to think about other than my own work, and by making me laugh. I am very much obliged to you all.
I owe a huge debt to my indefatigable agent, Araminta Whitley, to Ellah Allfrey, my original commissioning editor at Jonathan Cape, and to Alex Bowler, who has edited the manuscript with calm intelligence and insight. Thank you also to everyone at Cape who worked on the production. At Free Press in the United States, I would like to thank Leslie Meredith and her assistant Donna Loffredo for their faith in the book and invaluable editing contributions. I am grateful also to my American agent Melissa Chinchillo, and must add a big thank-you to Bettany Hughes, who gave me my entrée into publishing, and has been a generous source of encouragement and advice since.
Aude Doody, Katie Fleming, Miriam Leonard and Daniel Orrells are not just the best of Classicists, but the best of friends, and I couldn’t do without their support. Julian Alexander has heroically put up with a writer’s questions out of hours, and I owe him for a great deal, not least the use of a kitchen table on which to write, and shrewd advice on when it was time to open the wine.
Lastly, my heartfelt thanks go to my family, both here in England and in Bermuda – above all my parents, for their love, support and extraordinary generosity, without which none of this would mean anything.
A Postscript: During the writing of this book, I acquired a new nephew and a new goddaughter. By a purely happy coincidence, their parents chose to christen them, respectively, Augustus and Livia. I am not sure whether or not I should hope that they follow in their namesakes’ footsteps. But I certainly wish them well in their endeavours.
The author is grateful to copyright holders for permission to use lines from the following texts: Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, translated by Robert Graves (1957). London: Penguin. Reproduced by permission of Carcanet Press Limited. The Annals of Imperial Rome by Tacitus, translated with an introduction by Michael Grant (Penguin Classics 1956, sixth revised edition 1989). Copyright © Michael Grant Publications Ltd, 1956, 1959, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1989. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd. Agrippa’s Daughter (1964) by Howard Fast. Reprinted by permission of SLL/Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Copyright by Howard Fast Literary Trust.
Select Bibliography
Texts and Translations
Unless otherwise stated in the notes, all quoted translations of Greek and Roman works are taken from the following:
Ambrose, De Obitu Theodosii
Sister Mary Dolorosa Mannix, trans. Sancti Ambrosii Oratio de obitu Theodosii. Washington: Catholic University of America, 1925.
Anon, Historia Augusta
David Magie, trans. Scriptores Historiae Augustae. 3 vols. London: Heinemann, 1921–23.
Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights
J. C. Rolfe, trans. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. 3 vols. London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927.
Cassius Dio, Roman History
E.H. Cary, trans. Dio’s Roman History. 9 vols. London: Heinemann, 1914–1927.
Cicero, Letters to Atticus.
D. R. Shackleton-Bailey, trans. Letters to Atticus. 4 vols. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Claudian, On the Consulship of Stilicho
M. Platnauer, trans. Works. 2 vols. London: Heinemann, 1922.
Eusebius, Life of Constantine
Averil Cameron and S. G. Hall, trans. Eusebius, Life of Constantine. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.
Fronto
C. H. Haines, trans. The Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto with Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Lucius Verus, Antoninus Pius and various friends. 2 vols. London: Heinemann, 1919–20.
Herodian, History of the Empire
C. R. Whittaker, trans. Herodian. 2 vols. London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.
Jordanes, Getica
C. C. Mierow, trans. The Gothic History of Jordanes. Princeton, NJ; London: Princeton University Press, 1915.
Juvenal, Satires
S.M. Braund, trans. Juvenal and Persius. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Macrobius, Saturnalia
P V. Davies, trans. Macrobius: The Saturnalia. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
A. S. L. Farquharson, trans. The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Martial, Epigrams
D. R. Shackleton-Bailey, trans. Epigrams. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Olympiodorus
C. Blockley, trans. The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. 2 of 2. Liverpool: Cairns, 1983.
Ovid, Amores
P. Green, trans. The Erotic Poems. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.
Philostratus, Life of Apollonius
C.P. Jones, trans. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2005.<
br />
Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists
W.C. Wright, trans. Philostratus and Eunapius: The Lives of the Sophists. London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.
Pliny the Elder, Natural History
H. Rackham, trans. Natural History. 10 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann Press, 1938–1963.
Pliny the Younger, Letters
B. Radice, trans. Letters and Panegyricus. 2 vols. London: Heinemann Press, 1969.
Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus
B. Radice, trans. Letters and Panegyricus. 2 vols. London: Heinemann Press, 1969.
Plutarch, Life of Antony
R. Waterfield, trans. Plutarch: Roman Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1999.
Ps-Seneca, Octavia
J. G. Fitch, trans., Seneca: Oedipus, Agamemnon, Thyestes, Hercules on Oeta, Octavia. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History
C. Hartranft, trans. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Second series. Vol. 2. Oxford: Parker and Company; New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1891.
Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars
R. Graves, trans. The Twelve Caesars. London: Penguin, 1957.
Tacitus, Annals
M. Grant, trans. The Annals of Imperial Rome. London: Penguin, 1956.
Tacitus, Histories.
C. H. Moore, trans. Histories. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Heinemann, 1914–1937.
Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History
The Revd. Blomfield-Jackson, trans. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church. Second series. Vol. 3. Oxford: Parker and Company; New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1892.
Velleius Paterculus
F. W. Shipley, trans. Velleius Paterculus: Compendium of Roman History. London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967.
Virgil, The Aeneid
D. West, trans. Virgil, The Aeneid: A New Prose Translation. London: Penguin.
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