Britannicus
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus (12 February 41 — before 12 February 55) was the son of the Roman emperor Claudius 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. This allowed Agrippina's older son Nero to eclipse him in the public's mind. He lived only months into his step brother Nero's reign, murdered just before his 14th birthday.
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 Pallas, 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, 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, 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. This may also be the reason for his eclipse by Nero - although Claudius never spurned his son on purpose. Britannicus was quickly buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus, the last of the Julio-Claudians to be interred there.
According to Suetonius, Britannicus was good friends with the future Emperor Titus, whose father Vespasian 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 Graves, in which his father Claudius 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 Nero due to his own murder by Agrippina. In the 1976 television series, I, Claudius, he was portrayed by actor Graham Seed.
