Britannicus

• 1. Introduction

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  Britannicus was born on the 12th of February AD 41, and his father, Emperor Claudius, marked the occasion by minting coins. The obverse bore the legend Spes Augusta, the hope of the imperial house. Claudius had been emperor for less than a month when his son arrived. The birth changed Rome's political balance immediately. Yet Britannicus would die before his fourteenth birthday, poisoned at a dinner attended by his own sister. The man who ordered the poison prepared was his stepbrother. How does a child born into such expectation become a liability? How does a legitimate heir lose everything not through any failing of his own but simply by existing? That question traces through one of the stranger lives in Roman imperial history, and it begins with a name.

• 2. A Name From Conquest

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  His name at birth was Tiberius Claudius Germanicus. The surname Germanicus had been awarded posthumously to his paternal grandfather, Drusus the Elder, who died in 9 BC after victories over Germanic tribes. The name passed to Drusus' sons, Claudius and the celebrated general also known as Germanicus, and from each of them to their own children. In AD 43, Claudius led the Roman conquest of Britain. The Senate voted him the honorific Britannicus as reward. Claudius declined to use it for himself and gave it instead to his son. The boy's full name became Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, and the old surname Germanicus faded from use almost entirely. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, writing in the late first century, described Claudius' affection in concrete terms. He carried his son to public events, and Suetonius records that the crowd joined when the emperor wished the boy well. Britannicus was educated alongside Titus Vespasianus, the future emperor, under the same tutors and covering the same subjects.

• 3. A Mother's Fall

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  Rome's 800th anniversary celebrations in AD 48 gave the imperial household its most visible public test. The occasion was the sixth-ever Ludi Saeculares, held sixty-four years after Augustus last staged them in 17 BC. Among the events was a re-enactment of the Battle of Troy performed in the circus by young Roman nobles. Both Britannicus and Lucius Domitius, Agrippina's son, took part. Tacitus records that the crowd greeted Lucius Domitius with more enthusiasm than it gave Britannicus. Gaius Silius, described by Tacitus as the handsomest of Rome's young nobility, had become by that year the center of Messalina's most dangerous attachment. The affair turned extraordinary. Silius, who had no children, proposed marriage on one condition: that Messalina allow him to adopt Britannicus, giving them joint rule as regents in the boy's name. She agreed, waited for Claudius to leave the city, and performed the ceremony. Claudius' freedmen Callistus and Narcissus informed him of the bigamous marriage. The emperor had Messalina, Silius, and their associates executed. A tribune of the Praetorian Guard had to force a knife through Messalina's neck after she could not bring herself to act. Claudius' next step, taken in AD 49, would be to marry the woman who had stood watching from the stands that day.

• 4. The Making of Nero

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  In AD 49, Claudius married Agrippina the Younger, his own niece, a union that required adjusting Roman law. As a daughter of the general Germanicus and a descendant of Augustus, she commanded genuine loyalty among soldiers and ordinary Romans. During the consulship of Mammius Pollio, her son Lucius Domitius was betrothed to Britannicus' sister Octavia, placing the two boys at equal rank. In February 50, Claudius formally adopted Domitius and renamed him Nero Claudius Caesar. The two were technically joint heirs. In AD 51, Nero assumed the toga virilis, the mark of Roman manhood, even though he had not yet turned fourteen. The Senate voted he should hold the consulship in his twentieth year and granted him proconsular authority beyond the limits of Rome. Donatives went to the soldiers; presents to the people. Britannicus, by contrast, was not due for his toga until the 12th of February AD 55. At the circus, Nero appeared in triumphal robes while Britannicus still wore the clothing of a boy. Tacitus observed that the choice of dress alone shaped the crowd's expectations of the succession. Sosibius, Britannicus' longtime tutor, was executed on Agrippina's initiative. The two prefects of the Praetorian Guard considered sympathetic to Britannicus, Lusius Geta and Rufius Crispinus, were replaced by Sextus Afranius Burrus. Tacitus noted that Burrus understood perfectly to whom he owed his appointment. During the Saturnalia feast, Nero arranged for Britannicus to sing before their assembled companions, expecting the performance to be an embarrassment. Britannicus sang a poem about how he had been cast aside in favor of his adoptive brother. He generated sympathy among the guests instead of ridicule, and Nero began planning his assassination that night.

• 5. Poison and Memory

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  By late AD 54, Claudius seems to have grasped the direction of events. According to Suetonius, the emperor began speaking of divorcing Agrippina and removing Nero. He told his son to grow up quickly, implying he intended to set things right. Suetonius records Claudius saying: 'That the Roman people may at last have a genuine Caesar.' His freedman Narcissus was by then among the most visible supporters of Britannicus at court. Coins struck in Moesia and North Africa showed Britannicus' head on the obverse, a sign that backing for him extended beyond Rome itself. On the 13th of October AD 54, Claudius died. Some ancient sources record natural causes; others describe deliberate poisoning arranged by Agrippina, using mushrooms laced by a professional poisoner named Locusta. Narcissus was away in Campania when the emperor fell ill. Britannicus and his sisters Octavia and Antonia were kept confined to their rooms by Agrippina. Nero spoke the eulogy at the funeral and assumed sole power. A will in which Claudius had apparently provided for joint or sole rule by Britannicus was suppressed in the Senate by Nero's allies. Agrippina then employed Locusta a second time. The first dose prepared for Britannicus worked only as a laxative. Nero had Locusta brought to his room and, in Suetonius' account, beat her before watching her compound a faster-acting mixture. The substance was tested on animals and on children before it was carried to the dining room. Britannicus was poisoned at a dinner attended by his sister Octavia, Agrippina, and several other notables. A servant first tasted his drink. The poison was then added in the cold water poured to cool it. Tacitus records that he lost alike both voice and breath. Nero told the assembled guests that Britannicus was suffering an epileptic seizure, a condition he claimed had affected the boy since childhood. Britannicus died between December 54 and the 11th of February AD 55, the day before he would have assumed the toga of manhood. Nero held the funeral the following day in the rain, offered no eulogy, and cited tradition for the omission. Cassius Dio records that the body had been covered in gypsum to conceal the effects of the poison on the skin. As the body passed through the Forum, rain washed the gypsum away. Britannicus was cremated and his ashes placed in the Mausoleum of Augustus alongside his father's. Titus Vespasianus later erected a gold statue of Britannicus and issued coins in his memory. Jean Racine made the story into a stage tragedy in 1669, more than sixteen hundred years after that Roman dinner. The play is still performed today.