HISTORY: The First Ladies of Rome: The Women behind the CaesarsBy Annelise Freisenbruch Jonathan Cape, 400pp, £25
THERE IS QUITE a tradition emanating from Cambridge classical circles these days, led by such senior luminaries as Mary Beard, Paul Cartledge and Simon Goldhill, and communicated to their students, of producing, in addition to the usual detailed scholarly studies of specialised topics (or, in the case of their students, monographs based on their theses), high-class volumes of general interest for the educated public. I have reviewed a number of these over the past year or so, and here is another.
I am glad to say that this is also an excellent piece of work, well researched and judiciously presented, on a most intriguing topic: the personalities and roles of the women behind the throne in the Roman Empire, from Augustus himself, in the late first century BC, down to Theodosius, in the early fifth AD.
We begin, dramatically, with Livia Drusilla, then the 17-year-old wife of the Roman aristocrat Tiberius Claudius Nero, in 41 BC, running for her life from a fire in the vicinity of Sparta, where Nero, who had sided with Antony against Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, had taken refuge. Livia comes a long way from there, going on to marry Augustus, bringing with her the future Emperor Tiberius, and ultimately becoming a revered dowager and Mother of the Nation.
She inaugurates a long succession of remarkable women, from Augustus’s own flighty daughter Julia, married first to his top general, Agrippa, and then to his stepson Tiberius (before being exiled in disgrace to the island of Pandateria), through Agrippina and Messalina, wives of Claudius, the former also mother of Nero (who ultimately murdered her), the latter also sister of the mad Caligula and herself a perfect subject for the lowest sort of gossip magazine: she liked to go out at night dressed as a prostitute and see what she could earn when she got tired of wild parties within the palace.
From these we pass on to the rather more sober and dutiful wives of the Flavian rulers, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian (except for the very interesting Berenice of Judaea, who took up with Vespasian’s son Titus, and gets a chapter to herself), and those of the various second-century emperors, such as Trajan’s Plotina, Hadrian’s Sabina (who had quite a bit to put up with, not least from Hadrian’s boy favourite, Antinous, whom she may or may not have pushed into the Nile), or Marcus Aurelius’s Faustina – models of imperial womanhood more in the manner of Livia; then to the more exotic Syrian spouse of Septimius Severus, Julia Domna of Emesa (of particular interest to me, as she was a patron of philosophers); Constantine’s remarkable mother, Helena (sprung from humble origins but ultimately a role model for all Christian empresses – and finder of the “True Cross”); and ultimately to the cluster of wives, sisters and daughters surrounding the Emperor Theodosius II in the fifth century, Galla Placidia, Pulcheria and Eudocia, just as the Western Roman Empire was falling apart. The adventures of Galla Placidia, a lady commemorated by many fine frescoes and a stately mausoleum in Ravenna, are particularly notable.
All these and more Freisenbruch evaluates admirably, making good use, besides the literary sources (which are often hostile and muckraking), of inscriptions and iconography, such as coins and statues, to discuss hairstyles and other details of female dress that set a tone for contemporary womanhood. One fascinating theme of the book, indeed, is how the idea of a “first lady” arose within the Roman state, and what social taboos and inhibitions had to be breached in the process. There was always a serious problem as to how to honour the First Lady, whether as wife or mother of the emperor, either in life or after death (by deification). Roman tradition frowned on any public role accorded to women, but yet emperors, from Augustus on, liked to use their wives to promote family values and exalt the image of the dynasty. It was a step too far, however, for an empress to address the senate or to review the troops before a campaign. Every effort was made, naturally, to hush up scandals, but the ill success of such efforts is attested to by the gossip purveyed by later historians, such as Tacitus or Suetonius.
This book can be regarded as a fine contribution to feminist history (or “herstory”), as well as an excellent piece of classical historical scholarship, while also having a certain relevance to the problems of first ladies of the present day, some of whom, as we know, such as Nicolas Sarkozy’s Carla, are pretty lively, while others, such as Silvio Berlusconi’s better half, have much to put up with. As Hillary Clinton discovered, when she was assigned the job of investigating the US health industry, that industry was well able to stir up prejudice against an uppity female “doing a man’s job”, without coming out with that in so many words.
John Dillon is regius professor of Greek (emeritus) at Trinity College Dublin. His most recent publication is Platonism and the World Crisis
