BMCR 2009.08.38: Fuendling on Priwitzer, Faustina minor - Ehefrau eines Idealkaisers und Mutter eines Tyrannen quellenkritische Untersuchungen zum dynastischen Potential, zur Darstellung und zu Handlungsspielraeumen von Kaiserfrauen im Prinzipat. Tuebinger althistorische Studien Bd. 6

Stefan Priwitzer, Faustina minor - Ehefrau eines Idealkaisers und
Mutter eines Tyrannen quellenkritische Untersuchungen zum dynastischen
Potential, zur Darstellung und zu Handlungsspielraeumen von
Kaiserfrauen im Prinzipat. Tuebinger althistorische Studien Bd. 6.
Bonn:  Dr. Rudolf Habelt, 2008.  Pp. xv, 233.  ISBN 9783774935488.
EUR 79.00.

Reviewed by Joerg Fuendling, Aachen University, Germany
([email protected])
Word count:  2494 words
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On his way towards the present volume, his Ph. D. dissertation,
Priwitzer has lived through every postgraduate's nightmare, the death
of his original supervisor. Let it be said in advance that the
cumulative advice both of the late Hildegard Temporini-Graefin Vitzthum
and afterwards of Mischa Meier has been put to a highly creditable use.

There are more 'Untersuchungen' to Priwitzer's book than the table of
contents discloses at first sight. Three large sections, linked by the
person of the Younger Faustina, enquire into Hadrian's settlements of
succession in A.D. 136 and 138 (pp. 15-93), Commodus and Faustina
(96-174), and -- somewhat more condensed -- the circumstances of the
Avidius Cassius usurpation and Faustina's subsequent death in A.D. 175
(175-207; by some lucky twist this chapter begins on just the right
page). Yet from each of the longer sections another separate study may
be detached without effort: an excursus on the topos of how bad rulers
may owe their rule to the wily help of their (step)mothers (pp. 31-57)
and, in the second case, an even longer insertion on the
'Tyrannentopik' directed against Commodus and on contradictory evidence
(108-170). Both of these sections are a definite gain for the book and
lend welcome support to Priwitzer's lines of argument; they could
easily stand on their own as independent entities, though, and cause
some detrimental blur of structure in their present positions. In the
second case a fine and succinct study of the motif of Commodus the
Gladiator and his adulterous mother (95-108; 170-73) is all but
overshadowed by the decision to have it merely flank the loosely
related essay on tyranny. But that is a weakness of presentation, not
at all of the underlying scholarship. One reason may be the tendency of
some German faculties to consider dissertations on 'Studien zu' a minor
performance, compared to one-topic theses (or, at least, titles), and
the consequent defensive strategy of forming as large blocks of text as
possible.

After an introduction on dynastic policy and the empresses' role
therein (1-6) the three narrative pillars of Antonine history --
Cassius Dio, Herodian and the Historia Augusta (HA) -- are briefly
presented (7-14); Priwitzer's focus is on the respective author's point
of view or 'Kaiserideal'. A few words on the vastly varying qualities
of the pertinent HA lives would have been appropriate -- Priwitzer has
studied the tangle of attested or conceivable sources and treads warily
when using the secondary lives (among them Aelius and Avidius Cassius),
but he passes no general warning to his readers that they are facing a
text of intentional playfulness and some criminal energy. His own
approach, in fact, is at times more positivistic than the HA's literary
aspects seem to allow for.

Priwitzer's first study, "Die Nachfolgeregelungen Hadrians und die
Verlobung der Faustina minor", tackles a cat's cradle of hotly disputed
questions: Hadrian's reason for choosing L. Ceionius Commodus, Aelius
Caesar, in A.D. 136; the nature of his relation to and plans for Marcus
Annius Verus; the debate whether Marcus (arguments are presented on pp.
22-63) or the future Lucius Verus (63-83) was Hadrian's actual choice
for the second generation of successors. The conflicting theories are
presented in all clarity; this includes a handy, reliable overview of
the attested relations of both Marcus and Antoninus Pius (22-29). One
does miss a line of explanation for the two stemmata on pp. 23 and 29
and some help (like consular dates or PIR numbers) to identify
homonymous characters, but these and others are minor desiderata.[[1]]

We temporarily leave the Antonine question on p. 31 for the excursus on
bad rulers and their shady accessions ("'Schlechte' Kaiser, ihre
Muetter und ihr Herrschaftsantritt"). This part goes a long way back,
even to Olympias and Tanaquil, but will be a most welcome reference on
that topic. For reasons of economy the father-son relationships, here
treated apart from the corresponding mother-son chapters (and in
inverse order), should have been appended to them.

The resumption and end of the Hadrian part from p.57 onwards prepares
for the statement that neither Marcus (62-63) nor Lucius (89) or their
modern supporters can claim any cogent arguments to have been preferred
in A.D. 138 or even 136. In the process Priwitzer betrays a most
commendable distrust when confronted with stemmata that abound with
mutually exclusive lines of descent and question marks (63). But the
keystone to his analysis is a most remarkable attempt to prove that the
betrothal of Faustina minor to Lucius in Hadrian's lifetime in fact
never happened (72-83). From Priwitzer's point of view Hadrian
preferred Marcus in A.D.138 at the latest, out of mere personal
conviction and possibly encouraged by the qualities of his praefectus
urbi M. Annius Verus, Marcus' grandfather; Lucius was taken over and
adopted by Antoninus to keep him down instead of in (89-92) because
there was no way just to ignore him (209). An (early?) Antonine date is
preferred for the "Parthian Monument" from Ephesus, often quoted in
favour of Lucius (pp.83-89); Priwitzer meets the difficulty of
explaining the battle scenes by the suggestion that they show generic
images of the victorious emperor -- in fact, that there may be no
Parthians on them at all. As for the betrothal, Priwitzer has our only
witness, the author of the HA, fall victim to two undisclosed sources
for Pius 6,9-10, each of whom telling the self-same fact -- the
betrothal of Marcus to Faustina after Hadrian's death -- but using
different names for Marcus (p.76-77). As the critical item, "Verus" for
Marcus, returns in the HA version of Marcus' dream known from Cassius
Dio, Priwitzer suggests Dio, or at any rate "eine exakte Vorlage der
Historia Augusta" (77), as a possible source. Any evidence for two
distinct main sources in the Vita Pii, hitherto seen as homogeneous and
almost boring, will have momentous consequences for the controversy on
the early HA vitae as a whole, if adopted.[[2]] The pattern of events
certainly fits the policy chosen by Antoninus when emperor; it still
leaves unexplained why the Ceionii ever came in if Marcus was to have
been Hadrian's long-term choice even in A.D.136 (p.21).

One flaw of Priwitzer's tempting hypothesis is his quick assumption
that the hotchpotch of name elements in HA Marcus 1,3 and Verus 7,7
comes from an ill-informed source, the faultiness of which the author
"als solche nicht erkannte." (72) The same would apply to the massive
resulting contradictions. The HA works at times shoddily but can hardly
be credited with such ingenuousness, given their record of fictitious
or happily distorted names. There is a definite answer to Priwitzer's
belated question whether its author really took the pains to come up
with a confusing variety of names (75 n. 495), and to call the mode of
compilation "unbedarft" without further qualifications (ibid.) amounts
to a grave misjudgment.[[3]] Nor can a mere act of cut-and-paste from
sources explain why "Annius Verus" in Hadr. 24,1 is certainly Lucius as
opposed to "Marcus Antoninus" -- the author must have intervened here.
He might have modified the names in more than one single spot and
without a systematic pattern, including even the crucial Pius passage.
Nonetheless Priwitzer's proposal as a whole has the makings of a major
discovery and one can but sincerely congratulate him on his
observation.

"Der Tyrann Commodus und seine Mutter Faustina" (96-174), as sketched
above, is composed around the Tyrannentopik excursus (108-170). To
present this core section first, it will be an asset to both future
biographers and studies on imperial stereotyping. Priwitzer gives a
comprehensive list of character traits, political mishaps, subordinates
and decisions that have been quoted against Marcus' heir. The passage
on tyrants murdering relatives (122-124) might have been enriched by
Hadrian's killing of Julius Servianus and Pedanius Fuscus Salinator or
even, if close friends count, by the downfall of Licinius Mucianus when
Titus took over from Vespasian. These acts had at least the potential
to cast a suspicion of tyranny -- not its full shadow, perhaps, but
certainly a penumbra -- on those concerned. Priwitzer's perceptive
suggestion that the identification of Commodus with Hercules may well
go back to A.D. 176 (153) will find an eager audience if he should
choose to further expound it in the future. His collection of
pro-Commodian testimonies, both later and contemporaneous (159-170),
amounts to a treasure trove; his call for corrections of the distorted
picture, as our senate-centered sources draw it, is inevitable.

In the flanking passages (96-108; 170-174) Faustina's role is made out
to be that of a scapegoat for Commodus' failure to meet the
expectations that he would continue his father's policy; hence the
stories of infatuation or even adultery with a gladiator -- a chapter
rich in material on "Der Gladiator Commodus" (101-108) fills in its
turn half of those pages. Priwitzer could have immensely profited from
Peter Weiss's fundamental paper on Antoninus and the marital ideology
of his dynasty that, alas, appeared while the present book was already
in print. At long last there is an answer to the question why Marcus
and Faustina ran the mortal risk of pregnancy and childbirth more often
than any other imperial couple -- the dying away of their male heirs
could explain only part of it. What is more, the official insistence on
the spouses' concordia and virtuous conduct might account for at least
some of the sexual rumours about both of the Faustinae. [[4]]

To the final chapter, "Die Usurpation des Avidius Cassius" (p. 175-207)
and Faustina's alleged role in it. Here Priwitzer recognizes structures
that are by now familiar from the story of Commodus' gladiatorial
parentage: sympathies for Avidius outlived his destruction, maybe among
a few discontented members of the Senate (201-203), so Faustina was
blamed for egging him on. As an accomplice she seems highly improbable;
out of the question, says Priwitzer. His analysis of what Faustina and
her last surviving son might have done if Marcus had died in A.D.175 is
pithy and to the point. A possible regency of the empress and an
alliance with Claudius Pompeianus are both proposed and examined; the
project of marriage to Avidius, as Dio reports it, would have been an
option for Faustina but not for Commodus, who would most probably have
been superseded if not done away with in the long run. Priwitzer's
comparisons to Julia Domna facing Macrinus in A.D. 217 and especially
to Agrippina minor in 38/39 will hopefully also attract the notice of
those interested in the Julio-Claudian epoch as they develop into far
more than just a well-drawn parallel. Here, as in many other cases,
Priwitzer betrays a fruitful tendency to pursue even byways and
subordinate questions until he arrives at some presentable conclusion.
The possibility that Marcus' ill health favoured rumours of his death
is ruled out as well as the alleged suicide of the empress soon after
the crisis (Priwitzer decides on the autumn of 175 for Faustina's
demise); a question mark is set over the praise for Marcus' clementia
towards participants in the coup (203-205) -- the disappearance of the
praefectus Aegypti Calvisius Statianus and the treatment of the
surviving Avidii tell a different tale anyhow. In response to the
failed usurpation, Commodus, who is shown as already undergoing
presentation as Marcus' successor ("in der Vorstellungsphase als
Nachfolger", 181) in 175, was hurried through the remaining stages and
towards the rank of Augustus.

This leaves Avidius Cassius as the only instigator of his own revolt,
maybe because he hoped that his extraordinary command and the loyalty
of the eastern provinces would carry him to Rome, or else because he
feared demotion and death like a second Corbulo (206-7). Two pages are
not quite enough to advance such a pair of interpretations. If Cassius
wanted the purple and was ready to make a bid for it, why did he do it
in 175 and not in one of the previous years? So as not to stab the
efforts on the Danube from behind? Then again, if Marcus threatened or
even prepared to eliminate Cassius, why leave him in a paramount
position for civil war? After Priwitzer's creditable spell of sounding
options and possibilities on pp. 189-195 this would have been another
rewarding opportunity -- but perhaps we shall hear more from him in
years to come. Hopefully not about the letters of the HA's Vita Avidii.
They are fictitious, not only falsified and distorted as Priwitzer
seems to imply ("in der vorliegenden Form eindeutig Faelschungen":
177). There is simply not the faintest hint that any original or even
pseudepigraphic letters were accessible to the author of the HA, but
there are overwhelming parallels in structure and vocabulary, line by
line, to bogus letters and anecdotes throughout the corpus. The Avidius
letters should have been dismissed from the beginning.[[5]]

After the impressive fifteen-page bibliography, a monument of
application (there is far more in the footnotes), the agreeable bonus
of an index awaits systematic users (names, places and subjects all
combined). It is still less than one might have hoped for; the very
scope of Priwitzer's volume calls for an index of sources, since it
will be of material importance in many respects for years to come, both
as an easy reference and as a starting-point for further studies. We
must do without it, unless some day it might materialise as an on-line
supplement.

The parting assertion that new light in every respect has been shed on
Faustina ("in einem voellig neuem Licht", 210) seems exaggerated and,
given the numerous merits of the book, superfluous. What we have been
given is a remarkable number of clarifications and stimulating in-depth
studies, not a brand-new Faustina hitherto unknown. Her beginning and
end as a political figure -- maybe a pawn rather than a queen when it
comes to her range of influence and action -- are outlined more clearly
than ever; the decades in between, when she actually was the "wife of
an ideal emperor" as Priwitzer's title proclaims, do not figure in
these pages, nor do the few words on her we have from Marcus Aurelius
himself. But as a reading instruction to chapter-skimming,
page-skipping reviewers and grant committees, let those words stand;
they advertise a book that is well worth lasting attention.

Priwitzer's transparent if subdued language makes the volume quite
accessible to users from abroad; it abounds with well-disciplined
footnotes, some of which might have been amalgamated for the sake of
economy. His decision to quote from the bibliography by short titles,
not dates of publication, leads to a few additional pages' length. The
overall reliability and scarcity of misprints is very
satisfactory.[[6]] Advanced students will find the book a boon when
concentrating on single chapters; it may exceed their stamina to follow
from beginning to end, because of the sheer amount of ground it covers.
Readers beyond that stage will gladly welcome it as a diligent,
well-informed collection of high quality, part of it downright exciting
and decidedly an advance. Priwitzer has acquitted himself beyond
expectations.


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Notes:


1.   Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian in Stammbaum 1 (p.23) ought to be linked
by broken lines for adoption. 27 n. 96 omits the wilful swap of
Domitius Tullus and Lucanus, as natural and adoptive fathers of Domitia
Lucilla maior, by F. Chausson, "Varie/te/s ge/ne/alogiques: Numa
Pompilius ance^tre de Marc Aure\le", in: Historiae Augustae Colloquium
Perusinum 2000 (HAC 8). Bari: Edipuglia 2002, 109-147, proposed p. 112
n.8. Licinius Sura as a possible testator of the Testamentum Dasumii
(p. 30) is not really on a par with Domitius Tullus and has few
advocates outside his native Spain.

2.   On potential traces of Dio in the HA see J. Fuendling, Kommentar
zur Vita Hadriani der Historia Augusta. (Antiquitas 4.3.) Bonn 2006, 1,
128-137. To the appearance of Marcus as <greek>Ma=rkos *)/Annios
Ou)h=ros</greek> in Cass. Dio 69,21,2 add <greek>Bh=ros</greek> in
70,2,2. Marcus Aurelius is <greek>Ma=rkos</greek> throughout all that
remains of Dio's Books 71-72 which unfortunately weakens Priwitzer's
argument.

3.   R. Syme, "The Bogus Names in the Historia Augusta." BHAC 1964/65,
252-272 = id., Emperors and Biography. Studies in the Historia Augusta.
Oxford 1972, 1-16.

4.   P. Weiss, "Die vorbildliche Kaiserehe. Zwei Senatsbeschluesse beim
Tod der aelteren und der juengeren Faustina, neue Paradigmen und die
Herausbildung des 'antoninischen' Prinzipats." Chiron 38 (2008), 1-45.
-- One disclaimer pro domo: in my Marc Aurel (Darmstadt 2008, 49-50) I
have ventured to look for the consequences ("Folgen") of an arguable
eating disorder in Marcus' life but have known better than to pinpoint
any single key event ("Ausloeser", Priwitzer's p.107 n.95) or, for that
matter, any specific illness.

5.   R. Syme, "The Secondary Vitae." BHAC 1968/69, 285-307 = Emperors
and Biography 54-77. The links between the various pseudo-documents in
the HA are far from being exhaustively studied so far.

6.   Only potentially troublesome errors are listed.
p. 8 "seit Generationen wieder" read "als erster seit Generationen
wieder"
p. 29 Stammbaum 2 "Mindus" read "Mindius"
p. 34 n. 174 "die Zeitzeugen und nicht weniger kritischen" read "die
nicht weniger kritischen Zeitzeugen"
p. 48 "aeussert" read "aeusserst"
p. 76 "wissen wir nur aus der Historia Augusta" should be at the end of
the sentence
p. 204 n. 211 "Amm. Aur." read "Amm. Aur." -- this probably happened
when Priwitzer changed "Hist. Aug. Marc." to "Hist. Aug. Aur.". The use
of "Plu." for Plutarch throughout is somewhat idiosyncratic.