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AGRIPPINA'S (UN-)AUGUSTAN ANGER: TACITUS, ANNALS 12.22.3 AND OVID, TRISTIA 2.127
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 July 2023
Abstract
Book 12 of Tacitus’ Annals spotlights the ascent of Agrippina, the new wife of Claudius and mother of Nero, to the heights of power in imperial Rome. This paper examines how Tacitus deepens and complicates that characterization through an allusion to Ovid's depiction of Augustus in Tristia Book 2. The allusion, coming in Ann. 12.22 as Agrippina is consolidating her power, serves to cast her as a figure of awesome anger and authority on a par with Augustus himself, but also as lacking the ability Augustus had to put limits on that anger. The allusion thus underscores the Annals’ broader arc of the unruly collapse of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, while at the same time revealing the deftness of the historian of the Julio-Claudians at continuing and complicating the themes of the famed poet of Augustus.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Footnotes
For their comments on earlier versions of this essay, I would like to thank Salvador Bartera, Elizabeth Keitel, Victoria Pagán and CQ's anonymous referee. I am also grateful for the input and encouragement, at a later stage, from colleagues gathered for the panel ‘Poeticis magis decora? Latin Prose and the Limits of Intertextuality’ at the 13th Celtic Conference in Classics, in particular the panel's organizers, Scott DiGiulio and Dominic Machado. The text for the Annals is that of E. Koestermann, Cornelii Taciti libri qui supersunt. Ab excessu diui Augusti (Leipzig, 1965); all translations are my own.
References
1 On Tacitus’ depiction of Agrippina as a potent dux femina, especially in Annals Book 12, see L'Hoir, F. Santoro, ‘Tacitus and women's usurpation of power’, CW 88 (1994), 5–25Google Scholar; Späth, T., ‘Skrupellose Herrscherin? Das Bild der Agrippina minor bei Tacitus’, in Späth, T. and Wagner-Hasel, B. (edd.), Frauenwelten in der Antike: Geschlechterordnung und weibliche Lebenspraxis (Berlin, 2000), 262–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ginsburg, J., Representing Agrippina: Constructions of Female Power in the Early Roman Empire (Oxford, 2006), 9–54Google Scholar (23: ‘the dux femina par excellence’); Malloch, S.J.V., ‘Hamlet without the prince? The Claudian Annals’, in Woodman, A.J. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus (Cambridge, 2009), 116–26Google Scholar, at 118–19; Späth, T., ‘Masculinity and gender performance in Tacitus’, in Pagán, V.E. (ed.), A Companion to Tacitus (Malden, MA, 2012), 431–57Google Scholar, at 448; and Gillespie, C., ‘Agrippina the Younger: Tacitus’ unicum exemplum’, in Pieper, C. and Ker, J. (edd.), Valuing the Past in the Greco-Roman World (Leiden, 2014), 269–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See too Malloch, S.J.V., The Annals of Tacitus. Book 11 (Cambridge, 2013), 3–9Google Scholar on the arc of the Claudian books, with consideration of Agrippina's place in that movement. Keitel, E., ‘The role of Parthia and Armenia in Tacitus, Annals 11 and 12’, AJPh 99 (1978), 462–73Google Scholar, at 464–5 brings out how Tacitus’ treatment of foreign affairs in Annals Books 11–12 serves to highlight Agrippina's trajectory, noting that ‘[d]ominatio and regnum, the standard vocabulary for the eastern monarchies here as throughout the Annals (11.8.1; 11.8.3; 11.9.2; 11.10.1), are used of Agrippina's single-minded quest for power in Book 12’ (464). See also the historical account of Barrett, A.A., Agrippina: Mother of Nero (London, 1996)Google Scholar, with a focus at 95–142 on Agrippina's marriage to Claudius and ascent.
2 See Gillespie (n. 1), 282 on Agrippina's ‘singular exemplarity’ in the Annals and also Tacitus’ portrayal of her ‘as a woman who misreads her own symbolic presence in public material culture as representative of her actual roles’ (289).
3 Suetonius (Claud. 11.2) writes that Claudius’ mother Antonia Minor rejected the title, but that Claudius gave it to her posthumously upon his succession in 41 c.e.
4 See Martin, R.H., ‘Tacitus and the death of Augustus’, CQ 5 (1955), 123–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 128 for the suggestion that the interplay in the characterizations of Livia and Agrippina works in two directions, namely that Tacitus modelled his presentation of Livia's involvement in Augustus’ death and Tiberius’ accession in Ann. 1.5–6 on the traditional account of Agrippina's role in Claudius’ death and in Nero's rise.
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7 Mentioned again at Ann. 14.12.3; seemingly different from the concubine of Claudius with the same name at 11.30.1.
8 Note that in his translation Woodman, A.J., Tacitus. The Annals (Indianapolis, IN, 2004), 223Google Scholar includes a ‘but’ to connect the sentences.
9 See A. Draeger, Über Syntax und Stil des Tacitus (Leipzig, 18822), 129; A. Gerber and A. Greef (edd.), Lexicon Taciteum (Leipzig, 1903), 171; H. Furneaux, The Annals of Tacitus. Vol. II: Books XI–XVI (Oxford, 1907), 86 (‘an evident reminiscence’); Ginsburg (n. 1), 24; and J. Ingleheart, A Commentary on Ovid, Tristia 2 (Oxford, 2010), 143. I have found no scholarship offering interpretative analysis of the correspondence.
10 On the mixed messaging in this line, see Ingleheart (n. 9), 143: ‘on one reading, Augustus shows the self-restraint expected of leaders … On the other hand, death is the ultimate penalty, and it is hardly praising Augustus to mention his ira in the context of his choice of punishment.’ See similarly the readings of Tristia Book 2 as a whole by Williams, G., Banished Voices: Readings in Ovid's Exile Poetry (Cambridge, 1994), 154–209Google Scholar; and A. Barchiesi, The Poet and the Prince: Ovid and Augustan Discourse (Berkeley, 1997), 24–34, concluding: ‘Everything the poem says of and to the prince lends itself to a double interpretation, depending on the angle from which it is looked at’ (30).
11 Ovid does so two other times, at Met. 6.627 (infractaque constitit ira) and Pont. 1.4.44 (perstiterit laesi si grauis ira dei).
12 Tacitus uses the word elsewhere at Agr. 1.3, 10.4, 25.3 and 35.2; Germ. 16.3; Dial. 27.2 and 41.5; and Hist. 3.23.3.
13 See Santoro L'Hoir (n. 1), 17–25 on the ‘special type of abuse’ (17) that the term muliebris impotentia implies in Latin rhetoric, with a focus on the depiction of Agrippina at 21–3. See too K. Milnor, ‘Women and domesticity’, in V.E. Pagán (ed.), A Companion to Tacitus (Malden, MA, 2012), 458–75, at 469–70; and Gillespie (n. 1), 283 on how ‘impotentia marks [Agrippina] as a woman who tests the boundaries of her authority, often in a political context’.
14 Ginsburg (n. 1), 23.
15 Luke, T., ‘From crisis to consensus: salutary ideology and the murder of Agrippina’, ICS 38 (2013), 207–28Google Scholar considers multiple sources on the aftermath and Nero's political strategy after the assassination.
16 Santoro L'Hoir (n. 1), 25.
17 I am thankful to Christopher Whitton for pointing out the verbal parallel between Ann. 1.4.1 and 12.7.3. On the appearances and echoes of Augustus in the Annals, see Willrich, H., ‘Augustus bei Tacitus’, Hermes 62 (1927), 54–78Google Scholar; Thom, S., ‘What's in a name? Tacitus on Augustus’, AClass 51 (2008), 145–61Google Scholar; Cowan, E., ‘Tacitus, Tiberius, and Augustus’, ClAnt 28 (2009), 179–210Google Scholar; and Gillespie, C., ‘Agrippina the Elder and the memory of Augustus in Tacitus’ Annals’, CW 114 (2020), 59–84Google Scholar (80: ‘The memory of Augustus emerges as a site of conflict in Tacitus’ text’).
18 On Ovid's self-fashioning in Tristia Book 2, see Williams (n. 10), 193–201; Barchiesi (n. 10), 24–34; and Gibson, B., ‘Ovid on reading: reading Ovid. Reception in Ovid Tristia II’, JRS 89 (1999), 19–37Google Scholar with a discussion at 34 of his effort at 2.467–70 to ‘affirm his canonical status within the history of Roman poetry’. See too Ingleheart, J., ‘The literary “successor”: Ovidian metapoetry and metaphor’, CQ 60 (2010), 167–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar on 2.467–70 and Ovid's metapoetic uses of forms of succedo here and elsewhere.
19 See e.g. Walker, B., The Annals of Tacitus: A Study in the Writing of History (Manchester, 1952), 154–7Google Scholar; Lauletta, M., L'intreccio degli stili in Tacito: Intertestualità prosa-poesia nella letteratura storiografica (Naples, 1998)Google Scholar; Foucher, A., Historia proxima poetis: l'influence de la poésie épique sur le style des historiens latins de Salluste à Ammien Marcellin (Brussels, 2000)Google Scholar; Joseph, T., Tacitus the Epic Successor: Virgil, Lucan, and the Narrative of Civil War in the Histories (Leiden, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Daly, M., ‘Seeing the Caesar in Germanicus: reading Tacitus’ Annals with Lucan's Bellum Civile’, Journal of Ancient History 8 (2020), 103–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ginsberg, L.D., ‘Allusive prodigia: Caesar's comets in Neronian Rome (Tac. Ann. 15.47)’, TAPhA 150 (2020), 231–49Google Scholar.
20 There has been little scholarly discussion. For brief considerations, see Bruère, R.T., ‘Ovid, Met. XV, 1–5 and Tacitus, Ann. 1.11.1’, CPh 53 (1958), 34Google Scholar; Lauletta (n. 19), 202 on Dial. 41.5 and Fast. 1.225; and Ash, R., Tacitus Histories Book II (Cambridge, 2007)Google Scholar, index s.v. ‘Ovidian language’. Tacitus names Ovid once, at Dial. 12.6, where Maternus cites his Medea, along with Varius’ Thyestes, as examples of poems that won their authors fame.
21 See Sailor, D., Writing and Empire in Tacitus (Cambridge, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Joseph, T., ‘The figure of the eyewitness in Tacitus’ Histories’, Latomus 78 (2019), 68–101Google Scholar.
22 E. O'Gorman, ‘Intertextuality, ideology, and truth: re-reading Kristeva through Roman historiography’, Histos Working Papers 2014.01: 1–9.
23 Am. 1.15.41–2 ergo etiam cum me supremus adederit ignis, | uiuam, parsque mei multa superstes erit; Tr. 3.5.69–70 quilibet hanc saeuo uitam mihi finiat ense, | me tamen extincto fama superstes erit.
24 Woodman, A.J., Tacitus Agricola (Cambridge, 2014), 329–30Google Scholar. See too Rimell, V., ‘I will survive (you): Martial and Tacitus on regime change’, in König, A. and Whitton, C. (edd.), Roman Literature under Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian: Literary Interactions, ad 96–138 (Cambridge, 2018), 63–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 78–9, also comparing Mart. 10.2.8.