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THE CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST AGRIPPINA THE ELDER IN a.d. 27 AND 291

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2015

Tracy Deline
Tracy Deline*
Affiliation:
MacEwan University
*
delinet@macewan.ca
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Extract

Tacitus traces a series of conflicts between Agrippina the Elder and her father-in-law Tiberius. After the death of her husband Germanicus in Syria (a.d. 19), Agrippina returned to Rome with their children. Germanicus' lingering popularity with the armies and people meant that his widow Agrippina and their children enjoyed a level of popular support as well—one that eventually became a threat in Tiberius' mind. Agrippina, moreover, refused to embrace the modest, retiring role that her father-in-law (and Roman society in general) expected of her. Tiberius was, moreover, ‘never gentle toward the house of Germanicus’ and his concerns were augmented by the machinations of Sejanus, who reported that the people were dividing themselves into factions, some even calling themselves members of the partes Agrippinae. The combination of Agrippina's high birth—the only still-living grandchild of Augustus—and her status as widowed daughter-in-law of the emperor, therefore mother of the emperor's probable heir, along with her persistent independence and sometimes unfeminine strength of character made her seem an intolerable political threat. This paper examines the culmination of these conflicts, when Agrippina is subjected to criminal prosecution and penalty in a.d. 27 and 29 at the instigation of Sejanus, with the overt approval of Tiberius. Of primary concern is the timing and the order of the charges brought against Agrippina.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , December 2015 , pp. 766 - 772
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Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2015 

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Footnotes

1

The following books will be cross-referenced in subsequent notes by the author's surname and by date of publication, if appropriate: A.A. Barrett, Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire (New Haven, 1996); A.A. Barrett, Livia: First Lady of Rome (New Haven, 2002); R.A. Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome (New York, 1992).

References

2 Tac. Ann. 4.17.2.

3 Tac. Ann. 4.17.3.

4 For example, Sosia Galla, Titus Sabinus, Claudia Pulchra and her son Quintilius Varus. Sejanus had also fomented distrust between Tiberius and Agrippina, as illustrated by the offer of an apple at dinner—spurned because Sejanus had planted suspicions of poison (Tac. Ann. 4.54).

5 Tac. Ann. 4.67.3–4. Tacitus' use of the verb obicio to describe the accusations against Agrippina and Nero cannot be definitively interpreted as technical legal usage. Tacitus uses the verb obicio in the Annales on twelve other occasions. Two of the examples are instances of physical hurling: 2.15; 13.38. Seven more examples illustrate the technical legal usage of laying a formal legal charge: 1.73; 3.13; 12.22; 13.21; 13.52; 14.60; 15.35. The remaining three examples show people hurling accusations at someone, but in a generic rather than a technically legal sense: 14.7; 14.52; 15.60. Though the statistics are not definitive, the evidence points towards interpreting the usage in the contentious passage above in a technical legal sense.

6 Tac. Ann. 5.3.2. Bauman (n. 1), 151; Marshall, A.J., ‘Women on trial before the Roman Senate’, CV 39 (1990), 333–66Google Scholar, at 345; R.S. Rogers, Criminal Trials and Legislation Under Tiberius (Middletown, 1935), 101.

7 Tac. Ann. 5.3.2.

8 Tac. Ann. 5.3.2–3. On Agrippina's senatorial support, the so-called partes Agrippinae, see Bauman (n. 1), 130–56, esp. 154–6; Barrett (n. 1 [1996]), 33–9; at 33, Barrett notes that, although Agrippina had ‘considerable backing in the senate’, there is ‘little evidence of a coherent and orchestrated effort by her adherents to support her claims'. The argument put forward by Rogers, R.S., ‘The conspiracy of Agrippina the Elder’, TAPhA 62 (1931), 141–68Google Scholar, that Agrippina was masterminding a conspiracy against Tiberius, has fallen out of favour. Barrett (n. 1 [2002]), 219 notes that Cotta Messalinus was known for outrageous proposals that were intended to curry favour with the powers-that-be.

9 Tac. Ann. 5.4–5. The legal mechanisms of this situation are difficult to determine. Tiberius had the power as paterfamilias to punish offences within his own family, or as emperor to exercise power through flexible and ill-defined means extra ordinem. The legality of the situation is parallel to that faced by Augustus when he dealt with his daughter Julia in 2 b.c. If he exercised power as paterfamilias, he was accountable to tradition, but if he exercised power as emperor in conjunction with the Senate or simply through the power of his position, he would be expected to follow the spirit of the law, if not all the processes.

10 Tac. Ann. 5.3.1; Barrett (n. 1 [2002]), 309–10 discusses the precise date of Livia's death. She definitely died before 6 July a.d. 29, when the suffect consuls for the year took office. Tacitus notes Livia's death as the first item in his account of a.d. 29, which strongly suggests (though does not prove) that it took place very early in the year, perhaps even in the month of January.

11 Suet. Cal. 10.1; Barrett (n. 1 [2002]), 335.

12 Plin. HN 8.145; Vell. Pat. 2.130.4–5.

13 E. Meise, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Julisch-Claudischen Dynastie (Munich, 1969), 240; followed by B. Levick, Tiberius the Politician (London, 1976), 167–70; Bauman (n. 1), 151; Barrett (n. 1 [1996]), 36; and R. Seager, Tiberius (Oxford, 20052), 176–7.

14 For more on the practice of exile to islands, see Cohen, S., ‘Augustus, Julia and the development of exile ad insulam ’, CQ 58 (2008), 206–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Drogula, F., ‘Controlling travel: deportation, islands and the regulation of senatorial mobility in the Augustan Principate’, CQ 61 (2011), 230–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Suet. Tib. 54.2; 64; Cal. 7; Plin. HN 8.145.

16 Tac. Ann. 6.25.1; Suet. Tib. 53.2; Cal. 15.1.

17 Suet. Tib. 53.2.

18 Suet. Tib. 53.2; Sejanus and his family and followers, for example, suffered this posthumous penalty; included in this group was his young daughter Aelia Junilla. In 42, a group of women conspirators (part of a larger plot against Claudius) were executed and their bodies were thrown on the Gemonian stairs (Dio 60.16.1–3).

19 The Romans categorized many types of crimes as treasonous if they attacked the emperor or his family in some way; clarity of analysis is further hindered by the lack of specific legal terminology in our sources. In chronological order, the following women faced accusations of crimes against the imperial household: Appuleia Varilla, a.d. 17 (Tac. Ann. 2.50; Dio 57.19.1; Suet. Tib. 35.1; Plin. HN 7.22); Aemilia Lepida, a.d. 20 (Tac. Ann. 3.22–4, 3.48; Suet. Tib. 49); Munatia Plancina, a.d. 20 and 33 (Tac. Ann. 3.10–18, 6.26.3–4; SC de Pisone Patre [SCPP] 8–9, 109–20; Dio 57.18.10, 58.22.5; Suet. Tib. 52.3; Cal. 2; cf. Vit. 2.3); Sosia Galla, a.d. 24 (Tac. Ann. 4.19–20, 4.52.5; see also Vell. Pat. 2.130.3); the sister of Firmius Catus, a.d. 24 (Tac. Ann. 4.31.7); Claudia Pulchra, a.d. 26 (Tac. Ann. 4.52, 4.66.1; Suet. Tib. 53.1; Dio 59.19.1); Mutilia Prisca, a.d. 30–1 (Tac. Ann. 4.12.6, 5.2.2; Dio 58.4.5–7); Aelia Junilla and Seianiae, a.d. 31 (Tac. Ann. 5.9.1–3, 6.19.3–5; Suet. Tib. 61.5; Dio 58.11.5, 58.14.1; CIL 14 Suppl. 1, 4533 col. 2.19 Fasti Ostienses = Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius [Oxford, 1955], 42); Livilla (Livia Julia), a.d. 31 (Suet. Tib. 62.1; Dio 57.22.2, 58.11.6; cf. Tac. Ann. 5.6, 6.29.4; Plin. HN 29.20); Sancia, a.d. 33 (Tac. Ann. 6.18); Paxaea, a.d. 34 (Tac. Ann. 6.29.1–3; Dio 58.24.3); Acutia, a.d. 37 (Tac. Ann. 6.47.1); Cornelia, a.d. 39 (Dio 59.18.4; Tac. Hist. 1.48.8; Plut. Galba 12.1); Lollia Paulina, a.d. 49 (Tac. Ann. 12.22.3; Dio 60[61].32.4); Marcia Servilia, a.d. 66 (Tac. Ann. 16.30.2−16.33; Dio 62.26.3). Another nine probably faced similar charges.

20 Philo, In Flacc. 3.9; S.H. Rutledge, Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian (New York, 2001), 201–2; B. Levick, Tiberius the Politician (London, 1976), 206.

21 R. Bauman, Impietas in Principem (Munich, 1974), 78; the case of Appuleia Varilla in a.d. 17 is instructive: see Tac. Ann. 2.50; Dio 57.19.1; Suet. Tib. 35.1; Plin. HN 7.122. On libel, see Bauman (this note), 25–52, esp. 35–9 and (on Agrippina and Nero and the pamphlets) 122–3.

22 Sen. De Ira 3.21.5; Barrett (n. 1 [1996]), 37.

23 Tac. Ann. 5.3.2.

24 Agrippina's mother Julia had already been exiled to Pandateria in 2 b.c.; she was later moved to Rhegium, where she died in a.d. 14. Seneca mentions that Agrippina was held in a villa at Herculaneum, but does not indicate the relevant dates (De Ira 3.21.5; Barrett [n. 1 (1996)], 37). Livia's protection has been proposed as a reason for the lenient treatment of Agrippina in 27, and her death then allowed Tiberius to implement a harsher exile for his troublesome daughter-in-law—deportation to a small island. Livia's protection (if it existed at all) was likely only passive, as she is said to have detested her grandson's wife: Tac. Ann. 1.33, 2.43, 4.12; Seager (n. 13), 176; Barrett (n. 1 [2002]), 85, 98–9, 335–6.

25 The legal mechanism of this conviction is not mentioned in any of our sources. If Agrippina had a full and formal trial, it would have taken a rather long time to complete, given the multi-stage process of a serious criminal trial. There was clearly, in the events of 27, time for a debate in the Senate, but when responding to accusations of treasonous intent that could lead to a civil war, one suspects that speed would have been a priority. Tiberius had the power to impose a penalty without any other legal process and he may have done so in both 27 and 29.

26 Suet. Tib. 64.

27 Suet. Tib. 53.2.

28 For example, Tacitus' handling of the birth of Caligula (Ann. 1.41.3) is confused and inferior to that of Suetonius (Cal. 8.1), whose account is confirmed by the Fasti Vallenses and the Fasti Pighiani; A.A. Barrett, Caligula: The Corruption of Power (New Haven, 1989), 6–7 and 255 n. 9. Similarly, Tacitus' handling of the year 33 is demonstrably confused; see Woodman, A.J., ‘Tiberius and the taste of power: the year 33 in Tacitus’, CQ 56 (2006), 175–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Syme, R., ‘The year 33 in Tacitus and Dio’, Athenaeum 61 (1983), 3–23 Google Scholar.

29 Levick (n. 13), 167–8.

30 Tac. Ann. 5.3.1 and 5.4.2.