The Jewish War: First half of Book 2

[cahn]

Last week: Discussion on how Herod stacked up against various Roman emperors in terms of body count of his nearest and dearest; how Friedrich Wilhelm might hear the Josephus text; Herod throwing money around; Cleopatra!

This week: ...uhhhh there was a lot going on and I haven't actually finished the reading yet *ducks* -- I am doing that right now and I should most likely be able to comment tomorrow. (I don't anticipate this being a problem again for at least two more months, and most likely not then either; this was a confluence of various time sinks that doesn't usually happen all at the same time.) But I wanted to go ahead and get the post up because I know you guys have read it...

Next week: finishing up Book 2!

Comments

Tangent: Claudius, Agrippina, Nero, Britannicus

[selenak]

Because Josephus concludes the section/summation of Claudius' life and death with the statement that Agrippina made Claudius adopt Nero as his heir via magic, I thought before you post on everything else (of which there is much to say! With lots of gospel famous characters showing up!), I'll say something on this particular subject. Of the entire Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was the only Emperor who had a living son whom he could, in theory, have designated as his heir but didn't. None of the previous Emperors was in a position to do this, and none of the subsequent ones would be until Vespasian and Titus. HOWEVER, it's worth pointing out that Augustus by the time of his death did have a living grandson (Agrippa Postumus), and still prefered stepson and adopted son Tiberius for the succession (without calling it the succession; Augustus was very good in not calling the Principate a monarchy, after all, so he couldn't call anyone the next Emperor in documents). Not because he was so keen on Tiberius (he had designated everyone before him as heir until they died like flies), but because he clearly deemed Agrippa Postumus unsuitable. (This is why I'm equally open to the possibility that the execution of Postumus was Augustus' last order as I am to the possibility that it was Tiberius' first one.) And remember, everyone was still keenly aware of a bloody century of Roman civil wars and did not want a repeat. So there was actually precedent to preferring someone else over your nearer biological kin for the succession within the dynasty.

More importantly, though, were the circumstances behind the Claudius/Agrippina the Younger marriage and his adoptation of her son Lucius Domitius (who only post adoption was called Nero, it's a Claudian name, this) despite having a biological son of his own. Agrippina at the point of said marriage was incredibly popular in Rome, as even the hostile to her historians concede. (A few years earlier, the audience at the games had cheered her and booed Claudius' wife Messalina (mother of his son Britannicus) at the games, after which Agrippina, an excellent survivor, withdrew from Rome to the countryside knowing Messalina would gun for her until Messalina was dead.) She was basically Rome's tragic princess, the daughter of beloved Germanicus who died early (question mark as to whether natural nor not) and beloved Agrippina the older (banished, starved and beaten to death), with her two oldest brothers ecqually cruelly murdered by Sejanus and Tiberius. Yes, she was also no longer popular Caligula's sister, but he himself had banished her after a supposed conspiracy, so she wasn't tainted by this connection in the popular mind. She had been married at 13, had produced the first kid of her generation, and she and her son not yet Nero were the sole remaining living descendants of Augustus after the Claudian branch of the Julio-Claudian dynasty had done its best to wipe the Julians out, one could say.

(Think Mary Tudor before and including her accession. All the Bloody Mary unpopularity was yet to come. Until that point, Mary was the much beloved tragic princess, daughter of the much beloved Catherine, both of whom had been greatly wronged, and whose accession to the throne finally was justice. Yay! Until...)

Claudius marrying Agrippina the Younger, who was his niece (her father Germanicus having been his older brother), was incest and that was a problem for the public, but otoh it also was popular because so was she. (While Claudius himself at the start of his reign was not. Due to his physical handicaps, he'd been shut away from the public for most of his life, with only Caligula, as a joke, giving him public office for the first time during his reign.) And so was, at this point, her son, who was already an early teen, while little Britannicus, a few years younger, was a child. By not only marrying her but adopting Lucius-turning-Nero, Claudius was seen as reconciling the two branches of the family. And the idea of Nero (that much closer to adulthood than Britannicus) being groomed for the succession AT THIS POINT wasn't unpopular, either. A kid can't rule, no one wanted an uncertain succession or another civil war (see above), and there was precedent (see above). Plus Agrippina did her level best to showcase teenage Nero in the best possible light during her marriage with Claudius, let him practice with the Pretorians, making him attend Senate sessions, etc. Off course she lobbyed for her son as the heir (not least because her entire life story so far had presented her with plenty of examples for what happens if you have a blood connection to Augustus and are NOT in power). (So did one of the two freedmen who were Claudius' most influential ministers, Pallas, who had been the one to suggest Agrippina as Claudius' post Messalina wife to begin with.)

Now, by the time Claudius dies, things are starting to change in that Britannicus is now a few years older, no longer a kid but a teenager himself (and one of his friends of the same age is one Titus, son of Vespasian). It's entirely possible Claudius was about to reconsider. (Augustus reconsidered all the time, though in his case because all the early pre Tiberius candidates kept dying.) Some historians (with the benefit of hindsight) claim he was, and that this is why he dies courtesy of a poisoned dish of mushrooms presented by Agrippina. (Nero was 17 at this point, btw.) If Agrippina killed Claudius in order to ensure her son would really succeed, some heavy dark irony was waiting for her, not just because of how Nero would turn out later but because in the years with Claudius, she had far more political influence and could get things done than how things would go down with Nero after the first year or so. What none of this involves, obviously, is magic in our sense of the word. HOWEVER - basically poisoners like the one Agrippina is said to have employed, Locusta, were also referred to as witches. One of the several Latin terms for with can mean both.

Lastly: Agrippina the Younger wrote her memoirs; we know this because both Pliny and Tacitus refer to them at different points. Alas, they are lost, and if there is one lost work of antiquity, I would want to be recovered, it's not the second poetics of Aristotle (pace Name of the Rose), it's Agrippina's memoirs, not least because so few works by a woman from antiquity are preserved full stop, and I would love to read about her pov on the entire crazy Julio-Claudian saga.