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In scandals and power struggles obscured by time and legend, the wives, mistresses, mothers, sisters, and daughters of the Caesars have been popularly characterized as heartless murderers, shameless adulteresses, and conniving politicians in the high dramas of the Roman court. Yet little has been known about who they really were and their true roles in the history-making schemes of imperial Rome’s ruling Caesars—indeed, how they figured in the rise, decline, and fall of the empire.
Now, in Caesars’ Wives: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Roman Empire, Annelise Freisenbruch pulls back the veil on these fascinating women in Rome’s power circles, giving them the chance to speak for themselves for the first time. With impeccable scholarship and arresting storytelling, Freisenbruch brings their personalities vividly to life, from notorious Livia and scandalous Julia to Christian Helena. Starting at the year 30 BC, when Cleopatra, Octavia, and Livia stand at the cusp of Rome’s change from a republic to an autocracy, Freisenbruch relates the story of Octavian and Marc Antony’s clash over the fate of the empire—an archetypal story that has inspired a thousand retellings—in a whole new light, uncovering the crucial political roles these first "first ladies" played. From there, she takes us into the lives of the women who rose to power over the next five centuries—often amid violence, speculation, and schemes—ending in the fifth century ad, with Galla Placidia, who was captured by Goth invaders (and married to one of their kings). The politics of Rome are revealed through the stories of Julia, a wisecracking daughter who disgraced her father by getting drunk in the Roman forum and having sex with strangers on the speaker’s platform; Poppea, a vain and beautiful mistress who persuaded the emperor to kill his mother so that they could marry; Domitia, a wife who had a flagrant affair with an actor before conspiring in her husband’s assassination; and Fausta, a stepmother who tried to seduce her own stepson and then engineered his execution—afterward she was boiled to death as punishment.
Freisenbruch also tells a fascinating story of how the faces of these influential women have been refashioned over the millennia to tell often politically motivated stories about their reigns, in the process becoming models of femininity and female power. Illuminating the anxieties that persist even today about women in or near power and revealing the female archetypes that are a continuing legacy of the Roman Empire, Freisenbruch shows the surprising parallels of these iconic women and their public and private lives with those of our own first ladies who become part of the political agenda, as models of comportment or as targets for their husbands’ opponents. Sure to transform our understanding of these first ladies, the influential women who witnessed one of the most gripping, significant eras of human history, Caesars’ Wives is a significant new chronicle of an era that set the foundational story of Western Civilization and hung the mirror into which every era looks to find its own reflection.
- Sales Rank: #1751519 in Books
- Published on: 2011-10-25
- Released on: 2011-10-25
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.44" h x 1.20" w x 5.50" l, .78 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 384 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Former BBC freelance researcher Freisenbruch addresses a long-neglected topic in this intriguing study of the first ladies of the Roman Empire. While emphasizing such colorful individuals as Livia, the long-lived, scheming wife of Augustus; Agrippina, the mother of Nero, whose assertion of authority over him ended in her execution; and Julia Domna, the brilliant and tragic wife of the African-born Emperor Septimius Severus, Freisenbruch has also given us valuable information on less dramatic but steadier women whose presence enabled the Western Empire to flourish. Particularly significant were the roles of Helena and Fausta, the mother and wife respectively of Constantine the Great, in ensuring the triumph of Christianity in the Empire. Weakened only by a slight tendency to compare and contrast events with the modern media versions of Rome, Freisenbruch's debut is both fascinating and enjoyable. (Nov.) (c)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“A groundbreaking study of some of the most powerful women in early Western civilization….The author breathes new life into these overlooked subjects. A captivating look at imperial Rome’s roots in the making of the modern stateswoman.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Fascinating and enjoyable.” --Publishers Weekly
“A book both scholarly and racy…[Freisenbruch] restores to life some of the toughest, most colorful, and most bizarre women who ever existed.” –Robert Harris for Sunday Times (London)
About the Author
Annelise Freisenbruch was born in 1977 in Paget, Bermuda, and moved to the UK at the age of eight. She studied Classics to postgraduate level at Cambridge University, receiving a PhD in 2004 for her thesis on the correspondence between the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and his tutor Cornelius Fronto. During that time, she also taught Classics at a private school in Cambridge. She has worked as a research assistant on a number of popular books and films about the ancient world, and regularly gives talks to schools about Classics in popular culture. Annelise Freisenbruch was the researcher to Bettany Hughes on her critically acclaimed book Helen of Troy (Vintage). She was also a specialist series researcher on the BBC1 docu-drama series Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, and is currently working on films on Attila the Hun and Spartacus for the BBC. Annelise holds a PhD in Classics from Cambridge University and has worked as a freelance history researcher in the media for the last four years. She lives in Cambridge, where she teaches Latin to middle-school children. Caesars' Wives is her first book.
Most helpful customer reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Caesars' Wives are much more interesting that the real housewives of TV notoriety
By C. M Mills
Caesars' Wives is the first book by Dr. Annelise Freisenbruch. The author was born in Bermuda, raised in England and sports a Ph.D from Cambridge University! Not bad for a young woman in her early 30s! Friesenbruch has also done work as a freelance classical historian for the British Broadcasting Company.
Caesars' Wives covers in detailed prose the lives of the most prominent imperial spouses in the four hundred years from the Julio-Claudian emperors of the first century AD. to the end of the Roman empire in 476 AD. Wives discussed include such colorful and murderous wives as Livia who was married to Augustus for over fifty years and their infamous daughter Julia Also chronicled are important rulers from the eastern empire. Especially to be noted are Cleopatra VII the wife of Mark Antony; Berenice the Judean princess who wed Titan and Helena who was the mother of the first Christian emperor Constantine.
The problem I had with the book is there are so many names and dynasties to keep track of it boggles the mind of the historicla layman! This is particularly true as the book nears its 465 page end. It is a well researced book written in a scholarly style. Freisenbruch has done her homework quoting extensively from such ancient authors as Suetonious, Dio Cassius,
Pliny, Ovid, Tacitus and countless others both pagan and Christians.
The book could well be used as a resource in a collegetiate level course on the Roman Empire. Along with information about the women we find good descriptions of changes in fashion, childbirth customs and the role of women in the ancient world. A good book by a fine young classical scholar. Look upon it as "I Claudius" and "Rome" (TV programs on the period covered in this book) put in print and viewed from a female perspective. The book includes illustrations of coinage and portraits of many of the women mentioned in the text.
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
Unfocused presentaiton
By Lance B. Hillsinger
No single book can tell the story of the Roman Empire. The best any one book can do is focus on one aspect and tell the story of Roman Empire through that focus. Through the lives of the notable women of the Empire -- not just those who were married to a Caesar - Annelise Freisenbruch gives us the history of Imperial Rome.
Anyone familiar with the history of the Roman Empire knows that recounting the historical narrative is difficult; many historical figures are known by multiple names and the same name is common to many historical figures. Frisenbruch included multiple genealogical charts to help the reader navigate through the morass of names.
However, Frisenbruch's style of writing adds to the confusion. For instance, in the first paragraph of chapter one, the story begins with Nero and his seventeen year old wife, Livia, running for their lives in a burning forest. In the next paragraph, the text jumps to the political fallout following the assaination of Julius Caesar. This is followed by a comparison of Livia to Cleopatra which is followed by a brief biography of Nero. Nowhere in the chapter does the author take the reader back to the burning forest and how Nero and Livia made their escape.
Similarly, chapter five begins with a discussion two plays about the emperor Titus and his mistress Berenice. These are plays that premiered in 1610! Berenice's story is quite an interesting historical figure; she is even mentioned the Bible. It would have been a lot clearer for the author to recount her story first and then report that in the Middle Ages her life was made into competing plays -- not the other way around. The confusing style continues in chapter eight. That chapter begins with a discussion of a 1950 historical novelization of the life of Empress Helena. As the first Christian Empress, Helena's story is very important not just within the history of the Roman Empire, but the history of early Christianity as well. The reader doesn't need a reference to a book written in 1950s to tell the reader why Helena is important.
In places, Caesar Wives can be quite informative. When Frisenbruch writes about the symbolism of dress/hair styles or the symbolism found in coins and statues, or the evolving definition of the ideal Roman woman, the storyline is clearer. The text becomes particularly interesting when Frisenbruch's recounts those rare occasions when the empresses - or other female member of the Roman elite - exercised real political power or engaged in philanthropic largesse.
While there is slight feminist slant to her writing, when Frisenbrush writes about coins, dress, power, or philanthropy, she gives a fresh, and well-documented, analysis of the history of women inside the telling of the history of the Imperial Roman. It is unfortunate that this analysis is too often clouded by an unfocused presentation.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
An overdue perspective on Ancient History!
By Doug Welch
Long overlooked, the stories of the women behind the powerful men in Roman history get their stories told in this book. Author Annelise Freisenbruch pulls back the veil to reveal how the wives, sisters and daughters of the Julio-Claudians, Flavians, Antonines and Severans were involved in the jockeying for power and influence around the Emperor and future emperors. Livia gets a huge biography from Freisenbruch giving readers a much needed back story, including her father's flight from the partisans of Julius Caesar during the Civil War.
Among the ancient civilizations, Rome was unique in allowing women a place in public where the Greeks and everybody else kept their women sequestered. Freisenbruch goes far in showing sexual double standards being the foundation of social relations between the sexes and social class and social elevation were huge motivators and obstacles in people's lives at this time. Freisenbruch brings in a great depth and breadth of scholarship in antiquity but also women's issues across the ages. I myself have been really interested in the application of modern social theories and perspectives to the study of Classical Antiquity and the degree to which it makes stories from thousands of years ago seem very immediate and recognizable. This book definitely does that!
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