Britannicus
Encyclopedia
- For the 1669 tragedyTragedyTragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
by FrenchFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
dramatist Jean RacineJean RacineJean Racine , baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine , was a French dramatist, one of the "Big Three" of 17th-century France , and one of the most important literary figures in the Western tradition...
, see Britannicus (play)Britannicus (play)Britannicus is a tragic play by the French dramatist Jean Racine.The play, produced in 1669, was the first time Racine had tried his hand at depicting Roman history. The tale of moral choice takes as its subject Britannicus, the son of the Roman emperor Claudius, and heir to the imperial throne...
.
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus (12 February AD 41 — 11 February AD 55) was the son of the Roman emperor
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
and his third wife Valeria Messalina. He became the heir-designate of the empire at his birth, less than a month into his father's reign. He was still a young boy at the time of his mother's downfall and Claudius' marriage to Agrippina the Younger
Agrippina the Younger
Julia Agrippina, most commonly referred to as Agrippina Minor or Agrippina the Younger, and after 50 known as Julia Augusta Agrippina was a Roman Empress and one of the more prominent women in the Julio-Claudian dynasty...
. This allowed Agrippina's older son Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
to eclipse him in the public's mind. He lived only months into his step brother Nero's reign
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
, murdered just before his 14th birthday.
Birth and early childhood
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
and his wife Valeria Messalina. He was the oldest surviving son of his father at birth, Claudius's son by his first marriage to Plautia Urgulanilla
Plautia Urgulanilla
Plautia Urgulanilla was the first wife of the Roman Emperor Claudius. They married sometime around the year 9 CE, when Claudius was 18 years old. According to Suetonius, Claudius divorced her in 24 on grounds of adultery by Plautia and his suspicions of her involvement in the murder of her...
having died at the age of 14 nearly two decades before. He was accordingly named Tiberius Claudius Germanicus, sharing his father's praenomen
Praenomen
The praenomen was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the dies lustricus , the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the birth of a boy...
as recognition of his status as heir. Britannicus' father had been reigning for less than a month, and his position was boosted greatly by the arrival of a successor. To mark the birth, the emperor issued sestertii
Sestertius
The sestertius, or sesterce, was an ancient Roman coin. During the Roman Republic it was a small, silver coin issued only on rare occasions...
with the obverse Spes Augusta - the hope of the imperial family. Two years later, in 43, Claudius was granted the honorific "Britannicus" by the senate as a reward for his conquest of Britain. The emperor refused it for himself, but accepted it on behalf of his young son. This is the name by which the boy became known to posterity. According to Suetonius, Claudius doted extensively on Britannicus. He carried him around at public events, and shouted "Good luck to you, my boy!" to elicit a similar response from the crowds. He was supposedly a precocious child.
The fall of his mother, Messalina
In 48, Britannicus became a pawn in the acts that led to the demise of Messalina. One of the conditions for her bigamous marriage to Gaius SiliusGaius Silius
Gaius Silius was the name of two consuls of the Roman Empire, during the 1st century. The elder was a consul and commander in the Roman Army during the reign of Emperors Augustus and Tiberius and the younger a consul in the reign of Emperor Claudius....
was that he adopt her son as his own. They apparently then planned to rule as regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
s for the boy after the planned overthrow of Claudius. Messalina may have believed this was the only way to prevent her son from being killed with his father. Messalina and Silius were discovered shortly after their wedding and put to death, having never launched their coup.
The rise of his step brother, Nero
After the downfall of his mother, Britannicus' youth became a liability for Claudius. The lack of an adult heir made the emperor vulnerable to conspiracies aimed at overthrowing the dynasty, especially those by other Julio-ClaudiansJulio-Claudian Dynasty
The Julio-Claudian dynasty normally refers to the first five Roman Emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula , Claudius, and Nero, or the family to which they belonged; they ruled the Roman Empire from its formation, in the second half of the 1st century BC, until AD 68, when the last of the line,...
. It was suggested that he should find an older heir and try to bring an end to strife within the family by marrying Agrippina the Younger
Agrippina the Younger
Julia Agrippina, most commonly referred to as Agrippina Minor or Agrippina the Younger, and after 50 known as Julia Augusta Agrippina was a Roman Empress and one of the more prominent women in the Julio-Claudian dynasty...
, the last adult Julian. Shortly after Claudius married Agrippina, he adopted her son Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
, who was older than Britannicus and a direct descendant of Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
. Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
was married to Britannicus' sister Claudia Octavia
Claudia Octavia
Claudia Octavia was an Empress of Rome. She was a great-niece of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal first cousin of the Emperor Caligula, daughter of the Emperor Claudius, and stepsister and first wife of the Emperor Nero...
and named joint-heir with Britannicus until such time as the latter came of age. Nero was a popular young man, and his adoption did indeed stave off coup attempts in the second half of Claudius' reign. Britannicus did not get along with his step-family. According to the historian Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
, Britannicus continued to refer to Nero by his birth-name, Domitius, long after the adoption. However, it must be remembered that this was an accusation, made by enemies of Britannicus. This included public events where the boys were honored as a pair, and jealousy was heightened by Nero's rise to manhood. Nero reacted to these slights by insisting that Britannicus was illegitimate, but Claudius gave no indication of believing this. Tacitus reports that those who had reason to oppose Agrippina and Nero formed a faction around Britannicus, taking advantage of this discord. Agrippina retaliated against these supporters with force, changing Britannicus' circle. His tutor, Sosibius, had once been a tool of Messalina's, and Agrippina quickly disposed of him. Claudius may have agreed to this because of their links to his old officially damned
Damnatio memoriae
Damnatio memoriae is the Latin phrase literally meaning "condemnation of memory" in the sense of a judgment that a person must not be remembered. It was a form of dishonor that could be passed by the Roman Senate upon traitors or others who brought discredit to the Roman State...
wife. Such warring factions would have undermined his very reason for adopting Nero and marrying Agrippina.
The death of his father, Claudius
The actions Claudius took to preserve his rule in the short-term were not easily undone as Britannicus approached manhood. In late 54, Britannicus was within 6 months of reaching manhood by Roman tradition, and had matured early. According to the historian SuetoniusSuetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
, Claudius began to mention divorcing Agrippina and dismissing Nero now that he was no longer needed. In preparation, Claudius commended both his son and adopted son to the Senate as equals in his last Senate address. Suetonius reports that Claudius now admonished his son to grow up quickly, implying that everything would be righted when he assumed the toga virilis.
Sadly for Britannicus, Nero's supporters acted to prevent this. On 13 October 54, Claudius died, perhaps by natural causes or perhaps murdered by Agrippina. Tacitus claims that Britannicus and his sisters Octavia
Claudia Octavia
Claudia Octavia was an Empress of Rome. She was a great-niece of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal first cousin of the Emperor Caligula, daughter of the Emperor Claudius, and stepsister and first wife of the Emperor Nero...
and Antonia
Claudia Antonia
Claudia Antonia was the daughter of the Roman Emperor Claudius and his second wife Aelia Paetina...
were locked in their rooms to ensure that no counter claim could be made to Nero's succession. Nero spoke the eulogy at the emperor's funeral and took sole power. Claudius' new will, which either granted joint-rule to Britannicus and Nero or just Britannicus, was suppressed by the new emperor's men in the senate. The freedman Narcissus
Tiberius Claudius Narcissus
Tiberius Claudius Narcissus was one of the freedmen who formed the core of the imperial court under the Roman emperor Claudius. He is described as praepositus ab epistulis ....
, Britannicus' champion according to Tacitus, was quickly put to death. Britannicus was pushed to the background.
The end of his life
Britannicus survived for a few months under the rule of his adopted brother, mostly ignored, but the doings of his stepmother Agrippina led to his death. In early 55, one of Agrippina's favorites, the freedman PallasPallas (freedman)
Marcus Antonius Pallas was a prominent Greek freedman and secretary during the reigns of the Roman Emperors Claudius and Nero. His younger brother was Marcus Antonius Felix, a procurator of Iudaea Province...
, was sacked from his job as secretary of the treasury - a post he had held since the reign of Claudius. According to Tacitus, Agrippina reacted violently to this slight by Nero. She declared that she repented of her actions to bring Nero to the throne, and would throw in her lot with Britannicus, the true heir who would soon come of age. She threatened to take the boy to the Praetorian camp, where she would admit to murdering Claudius and Britannicus would be declared emperor. Nero did not take this threat lightly.
Tacitus recounts Nero's numerous attempts to publicly undermine Britannicus' image. One such attempt was when Nero asked Britannicus to sing at a drunken party, months before his 14th birthday. Britannicus however, not only avoided humiliation, but also generated sympathy amongst the guests, after singing a poem telling the tale of how he had been cast aside in favour of Nero. Tacitus also stated that a few days before his death, Britannicus was sexually molested by Nero (Tacitus Book XIII, 17).
According to Tacitus, Nero moved against Britannicus, employing the same poisoner, Locusta
Locusta
Locusta was a Roman serial killer during the 1st century AD.Locusta was born in the Roman province of Gaul. In AD 54, she may have been hired by Agrippina the Younger to kill the Emperor Claudius, possibly with a poisoned dish of mushrooms. In 55, she was convicted of poisoning another victim...
, who had been hired to murder his father, Claudius. The first dose failed, and Nero decided to throw caution in the wind. Britannicus was poisoned at a dinner party attended by his sister, Claudia Octavia
Claudia Octavia
Claudia Octavia was an Empress of Rome. She was a great-niece of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal first cousin of the Emperor Caligula, daughter of the Emperor Claudius, and stepsister and first wife of the Emperor Nero...
, Agrippina, and several other notables. The assassin avoided being given away by a food taster by adding the poison to his drink when Britannicus asked for it to be cooled, as he felt it was too hot. The substance was instantly fatal, and Britannicus fell to the floor foaming at the mouth. He died on 11 February 55, one day before his 14th birthday, less than a month before he was to assume manhood, and just four months after his father's death. Nero dismissed the murder by claiming that the boy suffered from epilepsy. Some modern historians, particularly Anthony Barrett, suggest that he may have indeed suffered from the disease, and that a particularly bad seizure killed him.
According to Suetonius
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
, Britannicus was good friends with the future Emperor Titus
Titus
Titus , was Roman Emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death, thus becoming the first Roman Emperor to come to the throne after his own father....
, whose father Vespasian
Vespasian
Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...
had commanded legions in Britain. As part of the Flavians' attempts to link themselves with the Julio-Claudians, Titus claimed that he had been seated with Britannicus on the night he was killed. He even claimed to have tasted the poison, which resulted in a serious and long illness. Titus would go on to erect a gold statue of his friend, and issue coins in his memory.
In popular culture
- Britannicus appears as a character in the novel Claudius the God by Robert GravesRobert GravesRobert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
, in which his father ClaudiusClaudiusClaudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
belittles him as a means of keeping Britannicus obscure in the public eye and thus safe from harm, but is unable to protect Britannicus from assassination by NeroNeroNero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
due to his own murder by AgrippinaAgrippinaAgrippina may refer to:In people:* Vipsania Agrippina , daughter of Caecilia Attica and first wife of the Emperor Tiberius* Vipsania Marcella Agrippina , daughter of Claudia Marcella Major and first wife of general Publius Quinctilius Varus* Julia the Younger or Vipsania Julia Agrippina , daughter...
. In the 1976 television series, I, ClaudiusI, Claudius (TV series)I, Claudius is a 1976 BBC Television adaptation of Robert Graves' I, Claudius and Claudius the God. Written by Jack Pulman, it proved one of the corporation's most successful drama serials of all time...
, he was portrayed by actor Graham SeedGraham SeedGraham Seed is an English actor.He trained at RADA and is best known for his role playing Nigel Pargetter in the BBC radio series The Archers from 1983 until January 2011, although actor Nigel Carrington briefly played the role when Graham Seed took a break in the late 1980s...
.