a lamentable victory: nero and the death of agrippina

Trevor S. Luke (Florida State University)

In this paper I argue that ancient accounts of the aftermath of Agrippina’s murder depict a crisis of cultural expression evoking both triumphal and funereal responses (Tac. Ann. 14.10-13; D.C. 62.14-19; Champlin [2003] 219-221), which reaches its climax at Nero’s entry into Rome. Nero’s botched handling of his mother’s death accentuated her significance as a source of conflict. An ensuing battle of words and images elevated the post-mortem stature of Agrippina to a level ordinarily unattainable even by women of the imperial household. In death, Agrippina’s image was likened to that of an imperial predecessor and principal foe in a civil war.

Nero sought to cover matricide with the fiction that Agrippina had made an attempt on his life. Familial obligations to bury Agrippina conflicted with the rhetoric of victory that was soon adopted. After Agrippina’s murder, Nero celebrated an obscure funeral to fulfill his filial obligations while hiding his guilt as her killer (Tac. Ann. 14.9). A triumphal narrative was also quickly set in motion. Burrus prompted centurions and tribunes to congratulate Nero as though the emperor’s “escape” from Agrippina were a great victory. Cities of Campania sent deputations to Nero in recognition of his success. The emperor was thus drawn into simultaneously playing out funereal and triumphal narratives. The Roman people too were drawn into a similar split narrative. Given Agrippina’s stature, her secluded funeral would have been perceived as unsatisfactory, causing Romans to see in Nero’s ‘triumphal’ return to Rome their only memorial for the mother of the emperor.

Although the funerals of members of the imperial family had long included explicitly triumphal imagery (Flower [1996] 238), only in civil war had a triumphator implicitly memorialized the death of a fellow Roman as he entered the city in triumph. Nero’s entry as “victor” over his mother provoked a rhetorical war between supporters of Nero and those of Agrippina (D.C. 62.16). Some Romans pulled down Agrippina’s statues as though she had been defeated. Others clearly took Agrippina’s side. To one Agrippina statue, which was covered as if by a veil, was affixed the inscription “I am abashed and you are not ashamed.” On graffiti around the city Nero was listed among the infamous matricides. Nero’s entry into Rome thus became a battlefield in which conflicting interpretations of Agrippina’s death either accentuated or contested the primary spectacle of imperial welcome (Beard [2003] 29-39).

Nero’s entry into Rome was both a kind of triumph and also a kind of funeral procession. It also provides the reader a rare glimpse into expressions of consensus and dissent that likely attended many spectacles but were rarely reported. Ordinarily the literary reporting of a triumph cast the spectator as a more or less passive recipient of the imagery and narratives of the procession. In Dio Cassius’ account of Nero’s entry into Rome (62.16), the distinction between spectator and spectacle is not only significantly broken down, but spectators become active participants in shaping the spectacle itself. The emperor’s advent was traditionally a locus for the assertion of consensus. Nero’s advent at Rome in 59 became a venue for expressing conflicting views about the emperor and his actions.

select bibliography

Alexander, W. H. (1954) “The Communique to the Senate on Agrippina’s Death,” CPh 49.2: 94-97.

Barrett, A. A. (1996) Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (New Haven).

Beard, M. (2003) “The Triumph of the Absurd: Roman Street Theatre,” in C. Edwards and G. Woolf (eds.), Rome the Cosmopolis (Cambridge).

Champlin, E. (2003) Nero (Cambridge, MA).

Flower, H. (1996) Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford).

Ginsburg, J. (2006) Representing Agrippina: Constructions of Female Power in the Early Roman Empire (Oxford).

Griffin, M. T. (1984) Nero: The End of a Dynasty (London).