Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T22:04:30.628Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Matricide Revisited: Dramatic and Rhetorical Allusion in Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Han Baltussen
Han Baltussen*
Affiliation:
The University of Adelaide
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A murder is always a dramatic event, and, since the dramatic nature of it depends to a large extent on it being witnessed and reported, one would hope that a good author would ensure his or her report of a murder reflected that. Agrippina's death, a matricide, has often been labelled as ‘dramatic’ by modern commentators, yet a comprehensive and satisfactory analysis of the reports as described in three ancient sources is still outstanding. A number of papers have given partial attempts at offering proof of the dramatic nature of the reports. My aim in this paper is to bring in two further significant connections between the historians’ accounts and other domains (Greek drama, rhetoric) which have to my knowledge been overlooked. These new factors force us to re-evaluate earlier attempts of finding the sources of inspiration for Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio. I will do this by spelling out certain allusions implicit in all three authors, but with special emphasis on Tacitus, showing that, despite its understated nature, his succinct account could be highly evocative to his audience, alluding to the pathos appropriate to both tragedy and rhetoric. These two strands of influence on the reports not only enhance the effect of the passage at issue, but also make a full and proper reponse of the audience to it more plausible.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 36 , November 2002 , pp. 30 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baldwin, B. ‘Nero and his Mother's Corpse’, Mnemosyne 32 (1979) 380-81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barret, A.A.Agrippina. Mother of Nero (London 1996).Google Scholar
Bartsch, S.Actors in the audience: theatricality and doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian (Cambridge, Mass. 1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bastomsky, S.J. ‘Tacitus: Annals, 14, 53, 2. The Pathos of the Tacitean Seneca's Request to Nero’, Latomus 31 (1972) 174-8.Google Scholar
Bastomsky, S.J. ‘Tacitus, Annals 14, 64, 1: Octavia's Pathetic Plea’, Latomus 51 (1992) 606-10.Google Scholar
Beare, W.The Roman Stage: A Short History of Latin Drama in the Time of the Republic (London 1950).Google Scholar
Boyle, A.J. (ed.) Senecan Tragedy. = Ramus 12 (1983) (special issue nos. 1-2).Google Scholar
Bradley, K.R.Suetonius' Life of Nero. An Historical Commentary (Bruxelles 1978).Google Scholar
Braithwaite, A.W.C. Suetoni Tranquilli Divus Vespasianus (Oxford 1927).Google Scholar
Clarke, M.L. ‘The thesis in the Roman Rhetorical Schools of the Republic’, CQ 45 (1951) 159–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, K. ‘Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments’, JRS 80 (1990) 44–73.Google Scholar
Dawson, A. ‘Whatever Happened to Lady Agrippina?’, CJ 64 (1968) 253-67.Google Scholar
Edmondson, J.Dio: the Julio-Claudians. Selections from Books 58-63 of the Roman history of Cassius Dio (transi, and with historical comm., London Association of Classical Teachers, 1992), introduction.Google Scholar
Edwards, C.Suetonius. Lives of the Caesars (Oxford 2000)Google Scholar
Epstein, S.J. ‘More Speech and Allusion in Tacitus’ Annales XIV, Latomus 51 (1992) 868-71.Google Scholar
Eyre, J.J. ‘Roman Education in the Late Republic and the Early Empire’, Greece & Rome 10(1963) 47–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffin, M.Nero: The End of a Dynasty (London 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goold, G.P. ‘A Greek Professional Circle at Rome’, TAPA 92 (1961) 168-92.Google Scholar
Hill, D. ‘Euripides, Medea and Electra’ (reviews), Greece & Rome 36 (1989) 92.Google Scholar
Hind, J.G.F. ‘The Death of Agrippina and the Finale of the “Oedipus” of Seneca’, AUMLA 38 (1972), 204-11.Google Scholar
James, C. ‘Where matricide is a family value’ (TV program review), The New York Times, Jan 29, 1999, p. 29.Google Scholar
Kennedy, G.The Art of Persuasion in Greece (London 1963).Google Scholar
Koestermann, E.Cornelius Tacitus Annalen, Bd. 4 (Heidelberg 1968).Google Scholar
Marrou, H. I.A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. Lamb, G. (Univ. of Wisconsin Press 1956), Part 3, chs. 1-3.Google Scholar
Motto, A. & Clark, J.R.Senecan Tragedy (Amsterdam 1988).Google Scholar
Quinn, K. ‘Tacitus' Narrative Technique’, in Latin Explorations. Critical Studies in Latin Literature. (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul 1963), 110–129.Google Scholar
Scott, R. D. ‘The Death of Nero's Mother (Tacitus, Annals, XIV, 1-13)’, Latomus 33 (1974) 105–115.Google Scholar
Shaw-Smith, R. ‘Two notes on Tacitus, Annals’, CQ 47.1 (1997) 327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shumate, N. “Compulsory Pretense and the “Theatricalization of Experience” in Tacitus’, Deroux, Carl (ed) Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History (Bruxelles 1997), 364–403.Google Scholar
Syme, R.Tacitus, 2 vols. (Oxford 1967 [1st ed. 1958]).Google Scholar
Townend, G.B. ‘Suetonius and his Influence’ in Dorey, T. A. (ed.) Latin Biography (London 1967), 79–111.Google Scholar
Wallace-Hadrill, A.Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars (London 1983).Google Scholar
Walker, B.The Annals of Tacitus. A Study in the Writing of History (Manchester 1952; repr. 1968), ch. IV.Google Scholar
Woodman, A.J. ‘Amateur Dramatics at the Court of Nero (Annals 15. 48-74)’, in Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford 1998), 190–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar