Did Livia Have Gaius Caesar Poisoned?

[frankq]

By the way, I checked my initial above posts and there's no where that I can see that I used the word ''destiny''.

 

Correction, I did use it and I see why there might be a misunderstanding. I should have worded it ''his duties'' not ''destiny''. Still, in the mindset of the times, he may well have seen things as his destiny even if he didnt like it.

[M. Porcius Cato]

Now, although I've never been stuck with a spear or arrow, I can well guess that any Roman like Gaius, trained early to serve, and to fight, is not going to let a wound deter him from his destiny.

 

BTW, I agree with Phil's post.

Edited January 18, 2006 by M. Porcius Cato

[frankq]

Now, although I've never been stuck with a spear or arrow, I can well guess that any Roman like Gaius, trained early to serve, and to fight, is not going to let a wound deter him from his destiny.

 

See my above post.

[phil25]

In the republican heyday, murder was not a usual way of settling political scores. Exile was the usual way of getting rid of rivals who were perceived as too great a threat to have around. The aim was to be seen by ones rivals as suceeding where they had failed, or surpassing them in opena and equal competition.

 

All that changed with the fate of the Gracchi, of course, but even then the proscriptions of Marius and Sulla were open. As were those of the second triumvirate - no one doubted how Cicero died or who was responsible. Cicero had Catiline's co-conspirators judicially murdered. But there seems to have been no direct threat to Caesar's life at until he crossed the Rubicon - had he laid down his imperium, his Boni enemies would have tried and exiled him. Watching events, stripped of citizenship and rights was a crueller punishment.

 

Clodius is perhaps one of the few exceptions.

 

So why do we assume the principiate indulged in murder any more than its predecessor system?

 

If we look at some of Robert Graves' (or Suetonius') candidates for murder, what do we see?

 

Marcellus - could easily have died of food poisoning or "plague".

The elder Drusus - war wounds (a hazard of his profession)

Agrippa - was getting old for his time

Gaius and Lucius - died far from Rome, one in the east where disease was perhaps more common.

Augustus - a very old man, his death seems natural, no need to ascribe unnatural causes (as with Tiberius later)

Germanicus was a somewhat hysterical figure - again he died in the east perhaps of an illness caught there. But he had enemies other than Livia and Tiberius. There is also a direct explanation if he was "executed" for treason - his unauthorised and politically dangerous visit to Egypt not long before his death - a forbidden land for senators without imperial prior permission.

 

On the other hand, it is not impossible that there was a genetic fault in the Julian, Vipsanian or Claudian bloodline that led to early deaths in some of its members. Caesar's Julia died young. Gaius and Lucius both had Agrippa's blood, so did Germanicus. His younger son Gaius may have suffered from ill-health.

 

I would not take at face value the sexual indiscretions of the two Julia's under Augustus - political conspiracy covered up is more likely given the different fates of Iulus Antonius and Ovid. But the exile of both women was public and they were not killed.

 

On the other hand, Sejanus, known as ruthless, may well have had Tiberius' son Drusus killed, and certainly had Germanicus' elder sons judicially murdered. But we can see the shape of the politics that might have brought that about. And Sejanus, specifically, was attempting to break into the royal family from without. He had little option but to remove rivals.

 

By the time we get to Claudius, I'll admit murder as a likely cause of death, but there is good political reason there - the struggle for the succession and the need for Nero to act before britannicus came of age. I'd also see the younger Agrippina as more ruthless than her mother or Livia (although that is, perhaps, just personal preference). But I'd argue the political dynamic had changed by the 50sAD.

 

So, I think I still see Livia as an unlikely murderess. If she needed to act against someone, unlike Sejanus, she simply had to poison with words.

 

All just my musings, of course,

 

Phil

[frankq]

Caesar's Julia died young but in childbirth. Of course, back then, longevity was no guaranteed thing.

 

As I stated earlier, Marcellus dying was a sad thing. Drusus dying next was a coincidence. Lucius following ten years later set a trend, and Gaius two years later confirms the trend. But of what? JUst a spooky streak of bad luck? Just the wild way life works out? Sickly and no-military-expereince Octavian having been able to climb to power is a miracle or bizarre working in and of itself.

 

I personally want to agree with you 100% and see Livia in shining light. But something Primus commented has haunted me, the fact that she probably had her hand in a dark deed or two. Why wouldnt she? She had the power to do so.

 

By the by, I've been digging deeper on this Gaius business and its seems while en route east he had a meeting with Tiberius, still in exile. Although there's no record of what really went down, it is ironic that after Gaius was wounded he suddenly wished to retreat from public life the same as Tiberius.

[phil25]

frankq:

 

Good post.

 

There must have been enormous undercurrents running within the Julian house and in Roman politics generally between Actium and the death of Augustus in 14AD. Syme even suggests (quite convincingly and realistically, in my view) that the second settlement (I think I recall correctly) was the result of an in-house "coup" by Agrippa and others.

 

There MUST have been a reason - more than sexual misdemeanours - as to why the two Julia's were exiled. It may be that Tiberius was wary of his wife (the elder Julia) and what she was up to, and retreated and that he told Gaius something that disturbed him too.

 

Augustus must have had a LOT of skeletons in his cupboard, if only from pre-Actium days. Maybe there was a "secret not-to-be-known". Didn't Ovid comment that he was exiled because of something he overheard? so much of the detail - that we possess from regimes such as Napoleon's or the Third Reich, and which helps us to understand and interpret them - is missing for ancient Rome. Would we guess at the chaotic way in which Nazi Germany was run unless we had the evidence, yet even in its own day it was thought to be monolithic and super-efficient. we now know that Hitler's satraps were at loggerheads the whole time, that decisions were made in strange ways - could this not be the same (unseen today) for Augustus' Rome?

 

Of plots and conspiracies in the period of which we have hints or evidence, I would propose:

 

The two Julias - the first involving a son of Antonius

Agrippa Posthumus

Possibly Germanicus in the east (Egypt trip)

Sejanus

The elder sons of Germanicus

Chaerea against Gaius

Messalina against Claudius

 

and that is just scratching the surface. Think how many of those are given a sexual connotation!! And yet in no case was the death anything but public or the punishment obvious. Germanicus possibly excepted, no need to resort to secret murder.

 

It is dangerous, in my view, to assume that the evidence which survives is representative of the whole picture. We must, I think, avoid basing too much on the scandals and sexual foibles retold by Suetonius and look for the hidden hints of the political and pragmatic reality. We need to assume gaps and look for realistic and plausible (also supported by evidence) potential explanations.

 

To me it is self-evident that Livia (imbued with republican values) would not have continued the anti-secret murder ethos of her youth. As I have said, there was no need for her to resort to murder when her word whispered in the ear of her husband could send anyone into permanent exile. That was then the Roman way - surely the evidence forces that view?

 

To me the issue of the many deaths has a simple explanation - like was uncertain at that time - diet, the risks of injury in daily life from accident, the relative weakness of medical knowledge, genetic failings, lead poisoning from water pipes etc, could all lead to early death or death at a relatively young age. Indeed, did not Octavian almost die twice (?) in his early years as ruler? If he had succumbed, would we now be arguing that Livia or some other murdered him?

 

Robert Graves was a great historian, classicisat and specualtive writer, but let us not assume that he had all the answers, or that his taste for the dramatic and sensational, reflects the truth.

 

Phil

[frankq]

I have read elsewhere that Julia was sent away because of Tiberius' disgust and protests. And interesting your mention of Hitler's government. He made it a policy of having all those under him hating each other so that their natural order of course was to turn to him for their support. The so called effective Nazi machine was in effect a system working on bloated credit. They had no recourse but to go to war, had they not done so their creditors would have called their ruin.

 

 

About your conspiracy list. I am in the dark about two:

 

The two Julias - the first involving a son of Antonius

 

and

 

The elder sons of Germanicus

 

By the by, I just ran into this at wikipedia, I have never heard it before, Tiberius' brother Drusus is suspected as actually being Augustus' natural son. It might be a wild theory. Go check it out.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero_Claudius_Drusus

Edited January 21, 2006 by frankq

[phil25]

Both Julias - Augustus' daughter and grand-daughter were sentenced for sexual misconduct and exiled. I always thought it an unlikely coincidence that mother and daughter should act and be condemned in the same way. I i found that many historians have the same doubts.

 

at the same time that the elder Julia was exiled, Iulus Antomius (son of the triumvir) was executed. Other nobles exiled, included (I quote Syme) T Quinctius Crispinus; Ti Sempronius Gracchus; anAppius Claudius Pulcher; and a Cornelius Scipio.

 

An interesting bunch of names, i think you'll agree?

 

The two elder sons of Germanicus, Drusus and Nero - elder brothers of Gaius Caligula - were imprisoned by Sejanus for treason. One actually informed on the other. Both died, one probably by starvation, in storerooms under the Palatine Palace. these were adult, imperial princes, with a lineage and potential destiny - peraps a grudge against Tiberius, as had their mother Agrippina Minor. I find it entirely believable that Sejanus may have tricked them into conspiring, or caught them out doing so. Either way, like their mother, they paid the ultimate price.

 

Let me know if you need more.

 

Phil