Mary Beard: The Twelve Caesars, Part 4
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- Опубліковано 19 сер 2021
- Mary Beard, Cambridge University. This six-part lecture series examines the continuing engagement throughout history with images of Roman emperors and its impact on Western visual art and culture.
In this fourth lecture, originally delivered at the National Gallery of Art on April 17, 2011, the esteemed classicist and professor Mary Beard discusses the role of female members of the imperial court in terms of dynastic succession, the transmission of power, and their representation in antique and post-antique art.
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One habit you find Mary Beard falling into that she shares with so many of her colleagues is the mistake of casting inherent doubt on all the purported sexual habits or escapades of the emperors or their wives and mistresses or paramours. The proper attitude is to suppose 50% probability of veracity until contemporaneus archaeology or independent contemporaneous text from a non-interested party were to corroborate or dispute the claim (which would hike the % up or down). Since we have extremely little in the way of such support, we have to stick with "we don't know" and not simply "oh, here is more slander" approach. If not, we risk imposing the values of Victorian prudery onto an era wholly devoid of them, even if we ourselves hold but few such norms as applicable to our own times.
54:37 In "Germanicus and Agrippina" the male figure is slightly darker-toned, as if in shadow, and seems to turn away from us. His eyes gaze slightly downward while Agrippina looks steadfastly forwards. Unlike in "Imperial Couple" he has no laurel-wreath. Could this be to imply that this is the dead Germanicus, held in memory by loyal Agrippina? As for the 1710 cataloguer, did he simply make a mistake?
If Livia had been portrayed as Ceres then why not Aggripina the Younger? Strikes me it was a bit of tradition. And, if so, the sculpted crowning of Nero by Ceres/his Mother backs up the received history of their troubled relationship. That her power over him and her power-sharing with him eventually became intolerable.
🦌 This dislike doth arrive in response to:
"There is no such thing as a good powerful wom[b]an.".
If this was in specific reference to that Epoch of time, I would argue that as a statement it may have been the opinion of some, but not the opinion of all, & certainly not the concurrent truth nor an integral overview of the society therein. ⚜️