Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire by Yale University Press
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AGRIPPINA AGRIPPINA Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire Anthony A. Barrett Routledge London First published 1996 in the United Kingdom as Agrippina, Mother of Nero by B. T. Batsford Limited. First published 1996 in the United States as Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire by Yale University Press. First published in paperback 1999 in the United Kingdom by Routledge, 11 New Fetter Lane, London, EC4P 4EE. First published 1999 in the United States by Yale University Press. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001. Copyright © 1996 by Anthony A. Barrett The right of Anthony A. Barrett to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress catalog card number: 96-60318 International standard book number: 0-415-208607-X (pbk.) ISBN 0-203-01235-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-14576-3 (Glassbook Format) Contents List of Illustrations VII Foreword XII Significant Events and Figures XVII 1 Background 1 2 Family 13 3 Daughter 22 4 Sister 40 5 Niece 71 6 Wife 95 7 Mother 143 8 The End 181 9 Sources 196 Appendix I The Year of Agrippina the Younger’s Birth 230 Appendix II The Husbands of Domitia and Lepida 233 Appendix III The Date of Nero’s Birth 234 Appendix IV The Family of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus 235 Appendix V Agrippina’s Movements in Late 39 236 Appendix VI The Date of Seneca’s Tutorship 237 Appendix VII The Decline in Agrippina’s Power 238 Appendix VIII The Patronage of Seneca and Burrus in 54–9 241 Appendix IX SC on Gold and Silver Coins of Nero 243 Appendix X The Final Days of Agrippina 244 Abbreviations 247 Notes and References 252 Bibliography 305 Index 325 Illustrations Photographs (Between pages 138 and 139) 1. Sculpted head: Agrippina 2. Sculpted head: Agrippina 3. Sculpted head: Agrippina 4. Sculpted head: Caligula 5. Sculpted head: Agrippina the Elder 6. Cameo: family group 7. Sestertius: Agrippina 8. Sestertius: Agrippina the Elder 9. Dupondius: Germanicus 10. Sestertius: Agrippina and her Sisters 11. Coin: Agrippina and her Sisters 12. Tetradrachm: Agrippina and Claudius 13. Aureus: Nero and Agrippina 14. Aureus: Nero and Agrippina 15. Tetradrachm: Agrippina 16. Denarius: Agrippina 17. Drachm: Agrippina 18. Relief: Agrippina and Claudius 19. Relief: Agrippina and Nero Stemmata I The Julio-Claudians VIII II The family connections of M. Aemilius Lepidus 59 Figures 1 The Roman world in AD 41 X 2 The Temple of Divus Claudius; podium façade 149 3 The Temple of Divus Claudius on the marble plan of Rome 151 4 Baiae and its environs 185 VIII IX X XI Foreword Through some perverse and mysterious quirk of nature, the villains of history, rather than the saints, are what excite the popular imagination. Characters like Rasputin, Dr Crippen, Vlad the Impaler are undoubtedly evil, but they are also so colourful and so alluringly sinister, that they fascinate at the same time as they repel. At first glance Agrippina the Younger clearly deserves membership in this select company. She plotted against her brother Caligula (as well as sharing his bed), she murdered her husband Claudius with a deadly mushroom, and she tried (unsuccessfully) to cope with a rebellious teenage son, Nero, by sharing his bed too. She was finally eliminated by that same Nero through a scheme as ingenious and outlandish as any in the history of crime – an irresistible combination of treachery, incest and murder. Or so tradition has it. Whether these things actually happened is another matter altogether. At one level it makes hardly any difference, since historical reputations are a product of perception, not of reality. But at another level the issue is an important one. The complete truth about Agrippina may be unobtainable by now, but the serious reader is entitled to hope for a version that comes as close to that truth as the evidence allows, rather than a string of entertaining but dubious anecdotes. That kind of sober reappraisal of the evidence is the objective of this biography. Time has certainly not been kind to Agrippina’s memory. She suffers one accidental disadvantage, essentially trivial but often a curse on posthumous reputations. She had a parent of the same name, not as famous (infamous in her case) but prominent enough for the activities of mother and daughter to be occasionally confused. Far more serious, Agrippina’s sordid popular image has eclipsed her more significant accomplishments. Along with Livia, the wife of the first Roman emperor, she represents a political paradox of the early Roman empire, the woman who managed to exercise great power and influence in a society that offered no constitutional role to powerful and influential women. It is this achievement, to be empress in an empire that allowed only emperors, that makes her accomplishments interesting and worthy of serious study. But not to the Romans – they saw the elevation of women like Agrippina as an inversion of the natural order, and the preoccupation of the ancient writers with the evils of female ambition all but blinded them to any admirable qualities they might have possessed. Modern scholars, of all national backgrounds, have with very few exceptions treated Agrippina no less harshly than did their ancient counterparts. In the first monograph devoted to her, Agrippina die Mutter Neros, written in German over a century ago, the distinguished writer Adolf Stahr accepted the hostile ancient testimonia uncritically. More recent treatments have maintained this tradition. Syme calls her ‘violent’, ‘truculent and merciless’, ‘corrupt but vigorous’ and speaks of her ‘robust criminality’. To Dudley she is a ‘Clytaemnestra’ of a XII FOREWORD woman. Mellor considers her ‘loathsome’ and ‘treacherous’, and complains of her ‘murderous immorality’. Fabia calls her ‘dure, vindictive, impitoyable’. Lackeit, in the entry on Agrippina in the influential Paulys Real-Encyclopedie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, portrays her as a depraved and power-hungry monster, who exercised a demonic influence over her husband and son. The excellent brief study by Werner Eck, Agrippina, die Stadgründerin Kölns, is on the whole more balanced, but he still portrays her as an essentially ruthless woman. Modern scholars generally share the revulsion felt by the ancients towards a woman who presumed to be ambitious and was therefore ‘greedy for power’ (Dudley), driven by ‘orgueil ambitieux’ (Fabia) or ‘ehrgeizigen Streben’ (Domaszewski). The actual record, however, suggests very strongly that both ancient and modern writers offer a lop-sided portrait, at best. Agrippina’s presence seems to have transformed the regime of her husband, the emperor Claudius. Only a secure ruler can be an enlightened ruler. She appreciated that such security depended on the loyalty of the troops, especially the praetorian guard garrisoned in Rome. This much, admittedly, involved no great insight, but her cleverness lay in recognizing that it was not enough to control their commander, who might be removed peremptorily; she also hand-picked the middle officers, and through them kept a secure grip on the rank and file. In addition, she understood that, while senators in Rome might not command armies, they did, more than any other group, represent the pride and traditions of the old republican Rome. Coercion and force could make them servile, but also sullen and dangerous, while diplomacy and tact would mould them into helpful collaborators. Similarly, the one colony founded under her sponsorship, Cologne, stands out as a remarkable instance of co- operation between the Romans and the local population. The evidence suggests that after her marriage to Claudius, Agrippina inverted the normal progression of a monarchical regime, changing it from a repressive dictatorship marked by continuous judicial executions to a relatively benign partnership between the ruler and the ruled. Also, the ascendancy she enjoyed after her son Nero’s accession coincided with the finest period of his administration, and her final departure from the scene seems to have removed the restraining check to his descent into erratic tyranny. Thus Agrippina’s contribution to her time seems on the whole to have been a positive one. This does not mean, of course, that she was a paragon of virtue and a woman of sterling character, worthy of the devout and unstinting admiration bestowed on her by her one major apologist, Guglielmo Ferrero. Writing at the beginning of this century, Ferrero portrayed her as a splendid heroine of duty. In fact, the evidence, honestly and fairly evaluated, seems to suggest that she was a distinctly unattractive individual. But in her defence it might be pointed out that politically ambitious people tend not to be appealing at the very best of times. And politically ambitious people who have to make their way in a monarchical system can generally succeed only through behaviour that is by most norms repellent. If we add to this formula a politically ambitious woman in a monarchical structure that had no formal provision for the involvement of women, the odds are almost insurmountable in favour of her being, by necessity, rather awful. It is when Agrippina is judged by her achievements, rather than by her personality or character, that she demands admiration. Clearly the Roman imperial system was unfair to a woman like Agrippina, whose talents XIII FOREWORD and energies were such that she would have achieved high office, quite likely the principate itself, had she been a man.