Emperor of Rome, page 41
The comics and entertainers at imperial dinner parties are discussed in my Laughter in Ancient Rome (above, ‘Chapter 1’), 142–5. The profession of the cook, in the palace and elsewhere, is the subject of M.-A. Le Guennec, ‘Être cuisinier dans l’Occident romain antique’, Archeologia Classica 70 (2019), 295–327. The individual tombstones can be hard to track down and their main discussions are often not in English. They are all listed and briefly discussed by Konrad Vössing, Mensa Regia (K. G. Saur, 2004), 509–29 (in German). The text of Primitivus’s memorial is published in Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (above, ‘General’) VI, 7458 and 8750; that of Herodianus in the same Corpus VI, 9005. Zosimus and the food tasters are discussed by Leonhard Schumacher, ‘Der Grabstein des Ti Claudius Zosimus’, Epigraphische Studien 11 (1976), 131–41. Plutarch’s glimpse into the kitchens at Alexandria is found in his Antony 28. Brian K. Harvey, Roman Lives: Ancient Roman Life as Illustrated by Latin Inscriptions (Focus, 2004), nos. 74 and 76, gives texts and translations of two other epitaphs of the imperial kitchen staff.
One version of the power relations of the dining room is illustrated by the arrangements at Antoninus Pius’s villa at Anagni, briefly discussed by Elizabeth Fentress et al., ‘Wine, Slaves and the Emperor at Villa Magna’, Expedition 53 (2011), 13–20 (available online: https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/53-2/fentress.pdf) and in more detail by Fentress and Marco Maiuro, ‘Villa Magna near Anagni: The Emperor, his Winery and the Wine of Signia’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011), 333–69. Emlyn Dodd et al., ‘The spectacle of production: a Roman imperial winery at the Villa of the Quintilli, Rome’, Antiquity 97 (2023), 436–53 discuss a similar dining arrangement. Suetonius, Augustus 74 notes the social barriers at the emperor’s dinners. The display of deformity (including the hunchbacks on the platter) is the theme of Lisa Trentin, ‘Deformity in the Roman Imperial Court’, Greece and Rome 58 (2011), 195–208. The story of Vedius Pollio is told by Seneca, On Anger 3, 40 and Cassius Dio 54, 23; that of the death of Britannicus by Tacitus, Annals 13, 15–17. I discuss the abuse of laughter, including several of the stories referred to here, in my Laughter in Ancient Rome (above, ‘Chapter 1’), 129–35. The dining rooms at Sperlonga, Baiae and elsewhere are the subject of Sorcha Carey, ‘A Tradition of Adventures in the Imperial Grotto’, Greece and Rome 49 (2002), 44–61 and Michael Squire. ‘Giant Questions: Dining with Polyphemus at Sperlonga and Baiae’, Apollo 158, no. 497 (2003), 29–37. Tacitus tells the story of the collapsing cave (Annals 4, 59) and of the last night of Agrippina (Annals 14, 4–9); Lawrence Keppie is one who would tie the dining room at Baiae to the site of her last meal, in ‘“Guess who’s coming to dinner?”: The Murder of Nero’s Mother in its Topographical Setting’, Greece and Rome 58 (2011), 33–47.
On other specific points of the use and abuse of dining, apart from the references easily found in the relevant ancient biographies, note the following. Hadrian’s napkins are referred to in the Imperial History biography of Alexander Severus 3. The pickpockets taking advantage of those watching the king’s dinner at Versailles are noted in Visitors to Versailles: From Louis XIV to the French Revolution, edited by Daniëlle Kisluk-Grosheide and Bertrand Rondot (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Exhibition Catalogue, 2018), 21–2. Cicero’s account of hosting Caesar is in his Letters to Atticus 13, 52. Herod’s dinner time lobbying is described by Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18, 289–97. Cassius Dio 57, 11 refers to Tiberius’s welcoming routine (the goodbyes are in Suetonius, Tiberius 72). Claudius’s good humour is mentioned by Plutarch, Galba 12, as well as by Suetonius, Claudius 32; dinner time adulteries by Seneca in his essay On the Firmness of the Wise Man 18, and also by Suetonius, Caligula 36 (similarly in Augustus 69).
Places to visit: The remains of the main imperial dining room on the Palatine in Rome is open to the public (at the time of writing the ‘Baths of Livia’ are again closed but they should open up in due course – and some of the decoration is on show in the nearby Palatine Museum). The painting from ‘Livia’s Garden Room’, which was used for dining, is now displayed in the Palazzo Massimo Museum, near Rome’s central station. In Italy, you can explore several luxury eating areas in Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli, as well as at the grotto at Sperlonga (with attached museum) and a reconstruction of Claudius’s water dining area in the Archaeological Museum of the Phlegraean Fields (at Baia). What is left of Caligula’s barges is in the Roman Ship Museum at Nemi (though some of their more splendid fittings are in the Palazzo Massimo Museum). There are many more modest, but still impressive, dining rooms to be seen in the houses at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Among the inscriptions, you can see one of the memorials to Zosimus on display in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the other is in Germany in the State Museum (Landesmuseum) in Mainz.
Chapter 4
Philo’s description of his encounter with Caligula is in his On the Embassy to Gaius (Legatio) 349–67. The occasion (and the background to the Alexandrian dispute) is discussed by Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Harvard UP, 2002), 54–83. Panayiotis Christoforou teases out Philo’s views on ‘emperorship’ in this text in ‘“An Indication of Truly Imperial Manners”: The Roman Emperor in Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium’, Historia 70 (2021), 83–115. A useful introduction to Roman gardens of all types including the imperial horti is Katharine T. von Stackelberg, The Roman Garden: Space, Sense and Society (Routledge, 2009), with discussion of Caligula and the horti Lamiani, 134–40. Kim J. Hartswick, The Gardens of Sallust: A Changing Landscape (University of Texas Press, 2004) gives an excellent idea of the artwork that decorated such horti. Amanda Claridge, Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide (2nd ed., Oxford UP, 2010), 330–33, offers a clear discussion of the ‘Auditorium of Maecenas’, as well as being a reliable guide to all the imperial residences in the city of Rome.
The history (and pre-history) of the Augustan Palatine and the imperial residences is the theme of T. P. Wiseman, The House of Augustus: A Historical Detective Story (Princeton UP, 2019), with further details in ‘Access for Augustus: “The House of Livia” and the Palatine passages’, Journal of Roman Studies 112 (2022), 57–77. In my view, despite many other theories, Wiseman has conclusively shown that what is now known as the ‘The House of Augustus’ and ‘House of Livia’ cannot possibly be what they are called. Cicero’s claim about seeing (and being seen by) the city from his Palatine house is from his speech, On his House 100. Josephus’s description of the murder of Caligula and its context on the Palatine is from his Jewish Antiquities 19, 1–273, translated by Wiseman in Death of Caligula (above, ‘Chapter 1’). The description of the layout of the early palace is at 117 (I have here used Wiseman’s translation). He takes the history of the Palatine up to the third century CE in ‘The Palatine, from Evander to Elagabalus’, Journal of Roman Studies 103 (2013), 234–68.
The Neronian developments on the Palatine are discussed in Aureo Filo (above, ‘Chapter 3’). The main ancient discussions of the Golden House are Suetonius, Nero 31 (including the quip about ‘living like a human being’, with verses quoted at 39), Tacitus, Annals 15, 42 and Cassius Dio 64, 4 (Vitellius’s sneer). There are good discussions of what remains and how it should be reconstructed (with reference to further technical archaeological studies) in Opper, Nero (above, ‘Chapter 3’), 228–41, with earlier Palatine buildings, 216–28; Edward Champlin, Nero (Harvard UP, 2003), 178–209 and Anthony A. Barrett, Rome is Burning: Nero and the Fire that Ended a Dynasty (Princeton UP, 2020), 175–222. The architectural innovation is the subject of Larry F. Ball, The Domus Aurea and the Roman Architectural Revolution (Cambridge UP, 2003). Maren Elisabeth Schwab and Anthony Grafton, The Art of Discovery: Digging into the Past in Renaissance Europe (Princeton UP, 2022), 190–225, is an excellent recent discussion of the encounters between Renaissance artists and the Golden House. The poet Martial, in his On the Spectacles 2, refers to Rome being restored to itself.
Martial, Epigrams 8, 36 hypes the splendour of the new developments, comparing them to the pyramids. The complexities of the main Palatine palace are clearly introduced by Jens Pflug and Ulrike Wulf-Rheidt in The Roman Emperor and his Court, edited by Kelly and Hug (above, ‘General’), vol. I, 204–38, with further material by Paul Zanker, ‘Domitian’s Palace on the Palatine and the Imperial Image’, in Representations of Empire: Rome and the Mediterranean World, edited by Alan Bowman et al. (Proceedings of the British Academy 114, Oxford UP, 2002), 105–30 (including the observation that the circuitous route at the salutatio showed off the palace’s splendour) and Wulf-Rheidt, ‘The Palace of the Roman Emperors on the Palatine in Rome’, in The Emperor’s House: Palaces from Augustus to the Age of Absolutism, edited by Michael Featherstone et al. (Walter de Gruyter, 2015), 3–18. The context of the remains of the palace among the earlier building is illustrated by Maria Antonietta Tomei, The Palatine (Electa, 1998). The complexity of the Japanese palace is described by Duindam, Dynasties (above, ‘General’), 185. The idea of a stadium garden is evoked in Pliny, Letters 5, 6. Many of the events in the history of the Palatine palace, and its particular features, are referred to in the relevant ancient biographies. But note also the following. Cassius Dio 68, 5 mentions Plotina speaking from the steps; and Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 4, 1 and 20, 1 recalls the intellectual chat while waiting for the emperor’s salutatio. The extent of the fire of 192 is discussed by Cassius Dio 73, 24. Herodian describes the division of the palace between Caracalla and Geta (History 4, 1) and the murder (History 4, 4).
In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder discusses various works of art in the Palatine and other palaces: for example, the Laocoon (36, 37), Tiberius’s painting (35, 69) and the sculpture whose return to the public was demanded (34, 61–62). Augustus’s goat is the subject of a poem in the Greek Anthology 9, 224 (available in the Loeb Classical Library and elsewhere). Josephus, Jewish War 7, 162 refers to particular treasures from the Temple ending up in the palace. The culture of cameos is discussed by R. R. R. Smith, ‘Maiestas Serena: Roman Court Cameos and Early Imperial Poetry and Panegyric’, Journal of Roman Studies 111 (2021), 75–152. The ‘world’s first paleontological museum’ are the words of Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters (revised ed., Princeton UP, 2011), 143 (with more general discussion of imperial and other collections 142–54). Augustus’s relic of the ‘Calydonian Boar’ and the ‘keepers of the wonders’ are mentioned by Pausanias, Description of Greece 8, 46. Phlegon, Book of Marvels 34 tells the story of the centaur; translation and discussion by William Hansen, Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels (University of Exeter Press, 1996). Steven Rutledge, Ancient Rome as a Museum: Power, Identity, and the Culture of Collecting (Oxford UP, 2012) explores the relationship between collecting and power at Rome. The graffito of the crucifixion is briefly discussed by Mary Beard et al., Religions of Rome (Cambridge UP, 1998), vol. II, no. 2.10b; all the graffiti are published (with the archaeological context) in Heikki Solin and Marja Itkonen-Kaila, Graffiti del Palatino, I Paedogogium (Finnish Institute in Rome, 1966) (in Italian). There is further recent exploration of the building, the meaning of the satire and the presence of Christians in the emperor’s household in Felicity Harley-McGowan, ‘The Alexamenos Graffito’, in The Reception of Jesus in the First Three Centuries, edited by Chris Keith et al. (T&T Clark, 2019), Vol. 3, 105–40; Peter Keegan, ‘Reading the “Pages” of the Domus Caesaris’ in Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture, edited by Michele George (University of Toronto Press, 2013), 69–98; and Michael Flexsenhar III, Christians in Caesars Household: The Emperor’s Slaves in the Makings of Christianity (Penn State UP, 2019).
Out of town imperial villas are reviewed by Michele George in The Roman Emperor and his Court, edited by Kelly and Hug (above, ‘General’), vol. I, 239–66. Studies of individual properties include: Villa Magna: An Imperial Estate and its Legacies, edited by Elisabeth Fentress et al. (British School at Rome, Oxbow Books, 2017); Federico Di Matteo, Villa di Nerone a Subiaco (L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2005); Clemens Krause, Villa Jovis: Die Residenz des Tiberius auf Capri (Philipp von Zabern, 2003); La villa dei Quintili, edited by Andreina Ricci (Lithos, 1998); R. Paris, Via Appia: La villa dei Quintili (Electa, 2000); and Robin Darwall-Smith, ‘Albanum and the Villas of Domitian’, Pallas 40 (1994), 145–65. Marcus Aurelius’s lifestyle in the country is evoked in a letter to his tutor, Fronto, Letters to Marcus 4, 6, also included in Caillan Davenport and Jennifer Manley, Fronto: Selected Letters (Bloomsbury, 2014) no. 6; the visit to Trajan’s villa is described in Pliny, Letters 6, 31. The document from the Alban villa (concerning the dispute between Falerio and Firmum, p. 229) is translated in Robert K. Sherk, The Roman Empire from Augustus to Hadrian (Cambridge UP, 1988), no. 96; the letter from Tibur is reprinted in Greek by Oliver, Greek Constitutions (above, ‘Prologue’), no. 74 bis (too fragmentary to translate).
The best overall account of Hadrian’s villa in English, including the engagement of later artists, is MacDonald and Pinto, Hadrian’s Villa (above, ‘Chapter 3’); with, more briefly, Thorsten Opper, Hadrian: Empire and Conflict (British Museum Press, 2008), 130–65. In Italian, the work of Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti has been particularly influential, including Villa Adriana: Il sogno di un imperatore (L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2001). The aesthetics of its sculptural display is explored by Thea Ravasi, ‘Displaying Sculpture in Rome’, in A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics, edited by Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray (Blackwell, 2015), 248–60. In ‘The Antinoeion of Hadrian’s Villa: Interpretation and Architectural Reconstruction’, American Journal of Archaeology 111 (2007), 83–104, Zaccaria Mari and Sergio Sgalambro present the new discoveries on site and argue (not entirely convincingly) that they are the tomb of Antinous. Some excavations of the gardens are discussed in Wilhelmina F. Jashemski and Salza Prina Ricotti, ‘Preliminary Excavations in the Gardens of Hadrian’s Villa’ American Journal of Archaeology 96 (1992), 579–97. The underground tunnels are the subject of Marina De Franceschini, ‘Villa Adriana (Tivoli, Rome). Subterranean Corridors’, Archeologia Sotterranea 2012 (online journal: www.sotterraneidiroma.it/rivista-online). Gemma C. M. Jansen, ‘Social Distinctions and Issues of Privacy in the Toilets of Hadrian’s Villa’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 16 (2003), 137–52, is a clever analysis of the lavatories. The one literary text that has been used to identify the different areas is the Imperial History, Hadrian 26.
Places to visit: The main residences of the emperor in Rome are open to visitors, from the Palatine itself (though not currently the Neronian levels) to the Golden House. For a view of the horti, the ‘Auditorium of Maecenas’ is open (prebooking usually required), as is the new museum of the horti Lamiani (‘Museo Ninfeo’). Much of the luxury material from the imperial ‘gardens’ is on display in the Capitoline Museums (and a substantial amount of sculpture is in the Ny Carlsberg Museum in Copenhagen). The graffito of the crucifixion is usually on display in the Palatine Museum. Outside Rome, as well as the dining rooms (above, ‘Chapter 3’), Hadrian’s villa at Tivoli is an easy visit (though the site is very large), but you can also explore Nero’s villa at Anzio, the villa of the Quintilii just outside the city (between Rome and Ciampino airport), Trajan’s villa at Arcinazzo Romano and parts of Nero’s villa at Subiaco. Some sections of the villa of Domitian can be seen in the gardens of Castel Gandolfo (there are various tour options through the Vatican Museums). The remains of Tiberius’s villa are one of the highlights of modern Capri.
Chapter 5
The poem on the father of Claudius Etruscus is Statius, Silvae 3, 3; his career in the palace is discussed by P. R. C. Weaver, ‘The Father of Claudius Etruscus: Statius, Silvae 3, 3’, Classical Quarterly 15 (1965), 145–54. Recent studies of Roman court culture are noted above, under ‘Prologue’. In addition to references to the idiosyncrasies of the court easily found in the relevant ancient biographies (or in Marcus Aurelius, Jottings to Himself), note the following. The troupes of children are referred to in Cassius Dio 48, 44. The presence of the young Titus at the death of Britannicus is recorded by Suetonius, Titus 2. The comparison between senior courtiers and children is implied in Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 4, 7. Tacitus, Annals 15, 23 tells of Thrasea Paetus’s exclusion, and one of Plutarch’s essays (On Talkativeness 11) recounts the story of the suicide of Fulvius. The ban on kissing because of the herpes outbreak is reconstructed from Pliny, Natural History 26, 3 and Suetonius, Tiberius 34. Seneca, On Benefits 2, 12 mentions the kissing of Caligula’s feet. The flattery practised by the elder Vitellius is described in Suetonius’s biography of his son, Vitellius 2. The satire on the turbot is Juvenal, Satires 4, well introduced by Christopher S. van den Berg, ‘Imperial Satire and Rhetoric’, in A Companion to Persius and Juvenal, edited by Susanna Braund and Josiah Osgood (Blackwell, 2012), esp. 279–81, with the now classic analysis by Gowers, The Loaded Table (above, ‘Chapter 3’), 202–11. The meaning of ‘selling smoke’ is dissected by Jerzy Linderski, ‘Fumum vendere and fumo necare’, Glotta 65 (1987), 137–46.
The imperial slave, and ex-slave, household is the subject of P. R. C Weaver, Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves (Cambridge UP, 1972), Rose MacLean, Freed Slaves and Roman Imperial Culture: Social Integration and the Transformation of Values (Cambridge UP, 2018), 104–30 (focused on ex-slaves), and a very useful essay by Jonathan Edmondson in The Roman Emperor and his Court, edited by Kelly and Hug (above, ‘General’), vol. I, 168–203. The graffiti of the slaves on the Palatine are discussed in Solin and Itkonen-Kaila, Graffiti del Palatino (above, ‘Chapter 4’). The doctor of Titus features in Alison E. Cooley and M. G. L. Cooley, Pompeii and Herculaneum: A Sourcebook (2nd ed., Routledge, 2014), 110; Garrett G. Fagan, ‘Bathing for Health with Celsus and Pliny the Elder’, Classical Quarterly 56 (2006), 190–207 (on 204) is, uncharacteristically, one of the killjoys. Susan Treggiari discusses Livia’s staff in ‘Jobs in the Household of Livia’, Papers of the British School at Rome 43 (1975), 48–77. Musicus Scurranus is briefly discussed by Keith Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge UP, 1994), 2–3; the epitaph is translated in Harvey, Roman Lives (above, ‘Chapter 3’), no. 68 (along with a selection of other texts on imperial slaves, including the keeper of Trajan’s ‘private outfits’, no. 77). The inscription detailing the career of the taster is translated in Harvey, Roman Lives no. 74, and in The Roman Emperor and his Court, edited by Kelly and Hug, vol. II, no. 5.11; the epitaph of Coetus Herodianus is referred to above, ‘Chapter 3’. Phaedrus, Fables 2, 5 tells the story of Tiberius and the slave, discussed by John Henderson, Telling Tales on Caesar: Roman Stories from Phaedrus (Oxford UP, 2001), 9–31. In Annals 15, 35 and 16, 8, Tacitus refers to cases against those who had ‘imperial style’ secretariats.
