cahn | Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

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Unfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.

(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )

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From:

selenak

So Catherine was, and her son made sure it would never happen again. I bet Paul truly thought she'd go Irene on him.

In fairness to Irene, look at the precedents she could check among Roman Empresses with strong personalities and ruling instincts who'd put all into bringing their sons into power:

1) Debatable: Livia. Debatable because Suetonius' version and Tacitus' insinuation which Robert Graves used so entertainingly in I, Claudius, that all those deaths of the heirs Augustus had before reluctantly agreeing to Livia's son Tiberius were arranged by her might have been pure male slander. But she definitely lobbyed for Tiberius... and never had as much influence when he became Emperor as she did when Augustus was still alive. Tiberius went out of his way to avoid her, and when she died, he refused to make her a goddess though the Senate was willing and ready. (It was left to Livia's grandson Claudius to do that.)

2) Definitely: Agrippina. The original imperial stage mom, so to speak. Also a target of male horror and insinuation, but what's really striking when listening to an Agrippina admirer like Emma Southon is that Agrippina was better off with Uncle-Husband Claudius than with Son Nero, and not just because Nero would kill her; she had actual political power during her marriage with Claudius and could exert it openly. (Not just by founding Cologne, without which German history would have been missing a lot. Thanks, Agrippina.) Whereas after a short while into Nero's reign, she fell out with her son and from then on he tormented her and in the end killed her. I'm sure Irene was very much thinking of Agrippina when deciding what to do.

3) The Julias of the Severan Dynasty: Julia Domna (wife of Septimius Severus, mother of Caracalla): had to watch one of her sons kill the other right in front of her. Ended up starving herself to death; Julia Bassiana: killed together with son Elagabel; Julia Mamaea: killed with son Severus Alexander (note: while young Severus Alexander TRIED, the first two were fuck-ups as rulers, and young Severus Alexander in the end wasn't the genius necessary to deal with Rome in that situation, either)

=> get your son into power, watch your son fuck up, best case get killed with your son, worst case have your son kill you is probably the moral of the story as far as Irene was concerned. Also, there's always the chance that she did not intend to do more than blind her son (cruel, absolutely, but not unheard of in a world where male Emperors are cool with having their male illegitimate offspring castrated so there won't be a problem) and he really did die of festering wounds.

...or she had fully intended for him to die. We simply don't know.

Podcasts: The three Irene episodes on "History of Byzantium" are:

Episode 78 - A New Helena
Episode 79 - A Mother's Love
Episode 80 - The Isaurian Dynasty (Irene's fall and a retrospective on her dynasty which ends with her)

Plus Robin the podcaster also did two additional episodes on Charlemagne (and Pope Leo)

Episode 81: Charlemagne and Leo (part 1): covers the rise of the ~~Stewards of Gondor~~ Carolingians and Charlemagne's career up to the coronation as Emperor of the Romans in 800

Episode 82: Charlemagne and Leo (part 2): how the Byzantines reacted, and how Charles and Leo spun that event, plus the rest of Charlemagne's career

Dirk from History of the Germans covers Charlemagne in the third part of the Prologue, titled "Charlemagne and all that".

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Also, there's always the chance that she did not intend to do more than blind her son

cahn, just in case: the Byzantines had a thing where you couldn't have a disability or disfigurement if you were going to rule (I believe the ancient Irish also had this?), so blinding your rivals or slitting their noses or what-have-you was an A+ way to eliminate them from the succession without having to live with the fact that you'd killed them.

Of course, in the days before antibiotics...you have to hope for the best with those festering wounds. (I am reminded of Fritz' friend/pet academic La Mettrie, who overate, got bled, and died of what we think was septic shock from unclean bleeding equipment.)

From:

cahn

Ohhhhh right! I knew that but it was definitely in my passive memory so I didn't make the connection :)

(I am reminded of Fritz' friend/pet academic La Mettrie, who overate, got bled, and died of what we think was septic shock from unclean bleeding equipment.)

I think I forgot salon thought it was septic shock -- I do remember he died suddenly after claiming there was no harm in getting bled and doing so, from when I wrote the Voltaire fandom AU...