From Adultery to Incest
From Adultery to Incest
Messalina and Agrippina as Sexual Aggressors in Tacitus’ Annals
This chapter continues the investigation of rhetorical maneuvers clustering around social and amorous hierarchies in the fraught sphere of sexual agency by studying the trope of the sexually aggressive older female preying on a younger man in Tacitus’ Annals. On the basis of a detailed examination of the portrayal of Messalina and Agrippina, it argues that it is precisely the recognizable rhetoricity and artificiality in the deployment of this trope, here dramatized through rich intertextual echoes and connections (notably Vergil’s Aeneid and Euripides’ Bacchae), which narratively undercuts any unambiguous condemnation of female superiority over male inferiority, disrupts any simple re-assertion of traditional Roman gender hierarchies, and opens up the text to alternative interpretations beyond the reach of the narrator’s authority.
Keywords: Messalina, Agrippina, Tacitus, Annals, gender, sexuality, Julio-Claudian dynasty, Latin historiography, intertextuality, Vergil
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