The Ghost of Agrippina the Elder: murder and exile in Imperial Rome.

Have you ever watched "I Claudius" Dear Reader? Oh my, you should.  It's my absolute favorite of all time, and was chiefly responsible for my early corruption.  Here's a link, so that you can get addicted too:

I Claudius, Internet archive

Ah, my beloved website, 'the internet archive.'  Honestly if I could have a romance with a website, it would be this one.

If anyone could be a ghost haunting those living in Rome, or the island of Pandataria with her despair and injustice, it would be Agrippina the Elder along with her mother Julia (the daughter of Augustus).

Here is the island of Pandataria, island prison for Imperial Roman women:

I know:  small, yes? Just imagine if you were there with no company, and only intermittent food supplies in the Classical world.  Remember also, that imprisonment here was without books, writing materials, or anything that might help pass the interminable hours.

It really effing sucks that this noble woman and her mother both were exiled to this island.

Alright.  So who was this Roman noblewoman?

Well, let's see:  she was the granddaughter of Augustus and Marc Anthony (yeah, Cleopatra's dude) and the daughter of  Marcus Agrippa and Julia (Augustus' daughter).  She was the mother of Caligula (although THAT is no distinction).  She was 'royalty,' if indeed there ever was such a thing in that powerful city.

I know, I know.  Confusing, right?

This is her family tree (the Julio-Claudian line);

Alright.  You may be lost, and don't want to read on, but stop a bit, and let me tell you a story of poison, political intrigue, and some justice.

This bust is Germanicus, Agrippina's husband.  He was enormously popular with the Roman people, and was considered a 'prince', or natural heir to emperor Tiberius.

Germanicus, literally the original golden boy.  Not handsome, but strong, and Tiberius (who was named emperor after Augustus) hated him, feared him, and was jealous of his popularity.

The relationship (i.e. marriage) between Germanicus and Agrippina appears to have been a happy one.  The couple were fruitful, and multiplied:  they had nine children, but only six made it to maturity.  The couple became heavily involved in court politics--Agrippina's political maneuvering indicated her desire to make her husband the successor to Tiberius.  However, this view of her is viewed with skepticism by modern classicists.  Emperor Tiberius 

In October, '19 AD, Germanicus, her husband, died in Antioch (modern day Turkey).  Yes, it was a sudden death.  It was also a mysterious death.  Here is what the gossipy writer Tacitus said about his demise:

When death was near, he spoke as follows to his friends who were standing around his bed. “If I were dying a natural death, I would be right to hold a grudge against the gods because they had taken me from my parents, children, homeland, with an early death, while I am still young. Now in fact I am separated from you by the wickedness of Piso and Plancina, his wife, and I leave my prayers in your hearts. Describe to my father and brother how I have been tortured with pain, surrounded by plots on my life, how I end my unhappy life with the worst of deaths. Anyone inspired by my hopes, or moved by jealousy of me while I lived, or a close relation, will weep to see a successful survivor of so many wars....You will avenge my death, if you care for me rather than my position. Show to the Roman People the granddaughter of Augustus, Agrippina, my wife; count our six children."

Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome.

  Whoa now, partner! Put that filly back in the barn! In other words,' my goodness Germanicus was so goddamned eloquent in his dying speechifying! Gee Whiz!'

I'm darn sorry Tacitus, but dying men don't speak like that unless they're on acid.

Tacitus is a problematic source, as his descriptions are so largely based on hearsay, rather than hardcore contemporary sources.  The same thing could also be said of Suetonius, who wrote on the same subject:

.Immediately following the unexpected death, the people and Agrippina suspected that her husband had been murdered:

There was some suspicion that he was poisoned; for besides the dark spots which appeared all over his body and the froth which flowed from his mouth, after he had been reduced to ashes his heart was found entire among his bones; and it is supposed to be a characteristic of that organ that when steeped in poison it cannot be destroyed by fire.

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars

Uh huh, I believe it.  No! Really! Well, OK, not the untouched heart, (cough) but I believe that Germanicus was poisoned.  The question is: who did it, and why? Well, we don't rightly know.  A hell of a lot of mystery and suspicions surround his death, even today.

Note:

Once again, Tacitus and Suetonius, as sources, are difficult to trust,  because they are gossips.  In other words, they used hearsay, sensationalism, and rumor.   They were the Roman version of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. : )

After the death of Germanicus, Agrippina the Elder returned to Rome with her children.  But, it was soon apparent that she was full of rage, and intent on publicly decrying her husband's murder.  Her accusations ultimately landed on Gn Calpurnius Piso (appointed by Tiberius to be legatus to Syria, a rather important position) and his wife  Plancina.  The couple briefly shared power with Germanicus and Agrippina.  From the beginning, it was not a happy relationship:  

From the outset of Germanicus' time in Syria, he and Piso were at loggerheads:  

he [Germanicus] found that every thing had gone wrong during his absence. His orders, military and civil, had been neglected or positively disobeyed. Hence arose a bitter interchange of reproaches between him and Piso 

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0132%3Alife%3Dgermanicus%3Achapter%3D1

Relations between the two men (and their families) worsened, causing friction between their factions. Conveniently for Gn. Piso (and Tiberius?) Germanicus' health appeared to rapidly deteriorate. As Suetonious tells us:

The poisoning, which he [Germanicus] now suspected, was not of a natural kind; it was a veneficum  [this latin term generally refers to acts and/or charms having to do with sorcery, including poisoning]  ....  if we may judge from the proofs by which it was supposed to be evidenced :-pieces of human flesh, charms, and maledictions, leaden plates inscribed with the name of Germanicus, half burnt ashes moistened with putrid blood, and other sorceries by which lives are said to be devoted to the infernal deities, were found imbedded in the walls and foundations of his house.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0132%3Alife%3Dgermanicus%3Achapter%3D1

Germanicus' health continued to deteriorate, and:

Feeling his end approaching, he summoned his friends, and called upon them to avenge his foul murder.

ibid.

It's pretty hard to argue with his family's suspicions of murder, folks, especially when he was in the prime of middle age, at 34.  In these circumstances, we can at least understand why Agrippina the Elder, close friends, and relatives created a hue and cry surrounding their subsequent accusation of murder by Gn. Piso and his wife Plancina.  

These accusations created a nightmare for emperor Tiberius, and his aging mother Livia (of ambiguous fame), who were vexed by Agrippina's actions.  But, the Roman populace loved her, and loved her dead husband.  When news of the death of Germanicus reached Rome, the city erupted in grief.  When she returned home with the ashes of her husband, and her children

3.4
The day on which the remains of Germanicus were carried into the Mausoleum of Augustus was characterised either by a deep silence or loud cries of grief. The route through the city was full of people; torches lit up the Campus Martius. The soldiers in armour, the magistrates without badges of office, the people arranged in the tribes were shouting continually that state was destroyed, and that no hope was left; they shouted so readily and openly that you might believe they had not remembered who ruled them. But nothing affected Tiberius more than the enthusiasm for Agrippina [the Elder]; they called her the honour of the country, the only blood-relative of Augustus, the one surviving model of the old values; as they turned to the sky and the gods, they prayed that her children might be unharmed and survive their enemies.

Tacitus, The Annals 

I wish I could tell you, Dear Reader, that Agrippina was successful in her attempts to bring Gn. Piso and Plancina to justice.  But, at least she and her supporters were able to arrange for a trial in the Senate--this put an intense public focus on Germanicus' tragic (and unnatural?) death.

So, what happened when the trial concluded? Well, at the moment when things looked grim for Gn Piso, he conveniently committed suicide.  I know, right? Boy, I bet ole Tiberius was relieved, and it's for sure Livia was.  His wife Plancina survived, as did most of her children.

And so there was, perhaps, some justice for the fallen Germanicus and his family.  Also, what these actions revealed about Agrippina the Elder, is that the woman had balls of steel (you should pardon the expression), because she took on the most powerful and corrupt person in her world.

I wish I could tell you that in the aftermath of this, Agrippina the Elder was able to retire into private life afterwards.  Ye Gods, I wish I could.  But Tiberius never forgot or forgave her for forcing the issue of her husband's murder.  She simply could not let the issue rest, and believe me she paid the price.  Tiberius began a covert attack on her by having his enforcer Sejanus (Ye gods, therein hangs a tale Dear Reader) arrest or condemn her friends and supporters.  One by one, her support system disappeared until she was completely exposed.  It was only then that Tiberius felt safe enough to order her arrest.  But, he couldn't just condemn her to a public execution, so he exiled her to the tiny island of Pandataria (now called Ventotene island).

I put a picture of this island (and that's being generous) at the top of this entry.  Today it's kinda pretty, a real vacation spot.  Trust me, it wasn't when Agrippina was sent there.  And so, the wife of the once great Germanicus was sent to Pandataria to die, really.  It was reported by later historians (like Tacitus), that she died of starvation.  Whether this was suicide, or Tiberius cutting off her supplies, we'll never know.

So, what (might you ask) happened to emperor Dickhead? Well, Livia's son grew lazy in his later years:  he moved to Capri, and never returned to Rome.  He ruled the empire (sort of) from there, leaving the administrative work to his work donkey, Sejanus.  

Tiberius'  retreat from public life, allowed him to indulge in, well, uh, thingies. Believe me, Roman historians had a wicked good time describing his exploits:

[43.1] On retiring to Capri he devised a pleasance for his secret orgies: teams of wantons of both sexes, selected as experts in deviant intercourse and dubbed analists, copulated before him in triple unions to excite his flagging passions.

[43.2] Its bedrooms were furnished with the most salacious paintings and sculptures, as well as with an erotic library, in case a performer should need an illustration of what was required. Then in Capri's woods and groves he arranged a number of nooks of venery where boys and girls got up as Pans and nymphs solicited outside bowers and grottoes: people openly called this "the old goat's garden," punning on the island's name.note

[ummmm, ewwww?]

[44.1] He acquired a reputation for still grosser depravities that one can hardly bear to tell or be told, let alone believe. For example, he trained little boys (whom he termed tiddlersnote) to crawl between his thighs when he went swimming and tease him with their licks and nibbles. Unweaned babies he would put to his organ as though to the breast, being by both nature and age rather fond of this form of satisfaction..  

[well, that's just grody.]  

[45] How grossly he was in the habit of abusing women even of high birth is very clearly shown by the death of a certain Mallonia. When she was brought to his bed and refused most vigorously to submit to his lust, he turned her over to the informers, and even when she was on trial he did not cease to call out and ask her "whether she was sorry"; so that finally she left the court and went home, where she stabbed herself, openly upbraiding the ugly old man for his obscenity. Hence a stigma put upon him at the next plays in an Atellan farce was received with great applause and became current, that "the old goat was licking the does." 

[Reeses Pieces, if such descriptions were true, then Tiberius was one nasty, dirty, and disgusting old f-er]

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars,  43-45.

Such passages are perhaps validated by other contemporary descriptions of his private life on Capri.  Compared to a guy like Tiberius-baby, the people must've thought Germanicus was a god.

And, so ended the tribulations of Agrippina the Elder...well not quite.  One cannot forget her little favored son, Gaius, who would survive his parent's deaths to succeed Tiberius as emperor.  Surely you must have heard of him Dear Reader? Well, perhaps not.  History recognizes him by his nickname:  Caligula.

Until next week....