Agrippina the Younger: Tacitus' Unicum Exemplum

Classical World, 2020

This article argues that Tacitus’ presentation of the tense relationship between Tiberius and Agrippina the Elder is predicated upon differing interpretations of Augustus’ memory. While Agrippina presents herself as the living imago Augusti and the populace praises her blood connection to the first princeps, Tiberius denies that her ancestry should grant her authority. This argument allows insight into the mnemonic function of women in the Annals and Tacitus’ presentation of the efficacy of the memory and images of imperial family members in general.

Agrippina the Younger was a unique woman by Ancient Rome's standards, dominating Roman imperial politics in a way that no woman before her had ever done. She had an insatiable lust for power, which was unequivocally evident throughout her life. This lust was nurtured by a variety of character-shaping factors such as her lineage, strong female role models, the passive role of women in society, and the cruel mistreatment of her family. These factors moulded her character and led her to become a key manipulator of her husband, son and major Roman nobles and a key influencer of Roman politics throughout the latter half of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, particularly through the use of her sexual allure.

2005

This short article intends to examine some issues relating to the emperor Claudius' apparently strange decision in AD 49 to marry his niece Agrippina, and subsequently to advance her son Nero towards the imperial throne, at the expense of his own son Britannicus.

“Types of Freedom and Submission in Tacitus’ Agricola.” Apis Matina: Studi in onore di Carlo Santini, edited by Aldo Setaioli. Trieste: EUT, 2016. 715-726, 2016

Suggesting a new explanation why Tacitus narrates the desertion of a German auxiliary cohort within the laudatory biography of his father-in-law, I will argue that in this work Tacitus exemplifies three basic ways of dealing with loss of freedom and thus explores the possibility to conceive both the rule of the Roman people over provincial subjects and of the emperor over the Roman elite as a form of empowerment in the service of a common cause. The Agricola displays the military sphere as a model for balancing the emperor’s claim for uncontested leadership and the senators’ claim for liberty, but also shows limits of this model.

Classical World, 2006

Within the discipline of ancient history, diverse types of sources, such as coins, inscriptions, portraits and texts, are often combined to create a coherent image of a particular ruler. A good example of how such a process works is the way in which reconstructions by modern scholars of the emperor Nero tend to look for a clearly defined ‘Neronian image’, by bringing together various types of primary evidence without paying sufficient attention to these sources’ medial contexts. This article argues that such a reconstruction does not do justice to the complex and multi-layered image of the last Julio-Claudian. By focusing on one particular aspect of Neronian imagery, the propagation of this emperor’s ancestry, we will argue that different types of sources, stemming from varying contexts and addressing different groups, cannot unproblematically be combined. Through an investigation of the ancestral messages spread by imperial and provincial coins, epigraphical evidence and portraiture, it becomes clear that systematic analysis of ancient media,their various contexts and inconsistencies is needed before combining them. Such an analysis reveals patterns within the different sources and shows that, in creating imperial images, rulers were constrained by both medial and local traditions. Modern studies of ancient images should therefore take these medial and geographical variety into account in order to do justice to the the multi-faceted phenomenon of imperial representation.

or you will live as in a theater in which the spectators are the whole world" (Dio 52.34.2). Dio's citing of an insight he imagines Maecenas having offered to Octavian more than two centuries earlier employs the truth of hindsight. Dio's Maecenas also counseled the young master of the Roman empire on how he might "enjoy fully the reality of monarchy without the odium attached to the name of 'King'" (52.40.2), and that he should "adorn this City with utter disregard for expense and make it magnificent with festivals of every kind" (52.30.1). Dio knew just how well Octavian and his successors had taken such advice to heart. Inside Rome's imperial theaters the spectators were presented with dazzling entertainments calculated to impress them with the glory of their patron, the princeps, whose performative presence added to the excitement and splendor of the occasion. The formal public spectacles -pervasive, massive, and influential as they were -demand our attention. But such performances are only the most obvious example of how the spectacular and the theatrical became progressively embedded in every aspect of public life during Augustus' reign. Indeed, the very city itself, according to Strabo (5.3.8), became a vast mise-en-scène "presenting to the eye the appearance of a stage-painting, offering a spectacle one can hardly draw away from." Its inhabitants too, ruler and ruled alike, were exhorted by the symbols, mythology, poetry, art, and architecture of the age to conceive themselves as actors in a great historical pageant: the expansion, perfection, and celebration of Roman power and Roman achievement. This theatricalization of perception and experience was a major defining element of the language, style, ceremony, and metaphors through Cambridge Collections Online