Emma Southon: Agrippina (Audiobook review)
The complete title is actually "Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore. A biography of the most extraordinary woman in the Roman world", and having listened to the audiobook now, I have to wonder whether all the hyperbole as well as the "whore" part was imposed by Audible and is the equivalent of a sensationalitic, attention-grabbing headline which even gets partly cntradicted by the actual article. Anyway, I eyed it sceptically but am glad I bought the audiobook anyway, having looked for a biography of Agrippina (the younger) for a good while now, because the result, an audio exclusive at least in my part of the world, very good. Both in the sense of being well written (by Emma Southon) and entertainingly read (by Imogen Church). Listening to it very much feels like hanging out with a Roman history expert who can also tell a story (not necessarily the same thing), and talking the night through.
Negatives: title aside, really just one. After an introduction which explains the source(s) problem (i.e. what the primary ancient sources on Agrippina are, what they're missing) well and to the point, there's a chapter summing up Roman history until our (anti)heroine's birth. Now I agree that it's important to establish a larger context for listeners/readers who don't know much, if anything, about Roman history, but listening, I nonetheless felt that particular chapter simplifies too much and talks down in a way none of the others do; it did come across as "Rome for Dummies" to me. So if you know already your Cicero from your Seneca and your Caesar from your Augustus, I reccommend skipping it, because all the rest is truly good.
It's not news that the Julio-Claudians, Rome's first imperial dynasty, provide excellent multigenerational soap opera material (see I, Claudius and its many imitations), which comes in handy for this particular book because, as the author states in the introduction, Agrippina the Younger, niece of Tiberius, sister to Caligula, third wife of Claudius and mother of Nero only shows up in her male relations' biographies, and there only sporadically until she marries Uncle Claudius. So we don't know much about her first two decades of life, and only a few things about her third, but our author covers for this by presenting them as a learning arc (aka what NOT to do) for her central subject and thus has license to cover what Agrippina must have witnessed. This also has the effect of giving you the feeling of a portrait emerging.
Southon is soundly septical towards several of the most sensational claims, pointing out contradictions or the way they got expanded by subsequent historians through the centuries, but otoh likes a gossipy tale as much as any, and isn't so defensive of Agrippina as to dismiss all and any instances of negative reporting. (Though she does make mincemeat of some.) Nor does she vilify Agrippina's opponents; she's as ready to point out inherent Roman misogyny in the reporting on Messalina as she is on Agrippina. But she highlights the sheer competence of her woman, and manages to keep the background (i.e. youth where the older brothers and mother get banished and/or murdered like flies) alive. And she has a great (and dark) sense of humor, without coming across as cheaply cynical. In short, she came across as the ideal Agrippina biographer to me, and I can reccommend the book wholeheartedly.
Negatives: title aside, really just one. After an introduction which explains the source(s) problem (i.e. what the primary ancient sources on Agrippina are, what they're missing) well and to the point, there's a chapter summing up Roman history until our (anti)heroine's birth. Now I agree that it's important to establish a larger context for listeners/readers who don't know much, if anything, about Roman history, but listening, I nonetheless felt that particular chapter simplifies too much and talks down in a way none of the others do; it did come across as "Rome for Dummies" to me. So if you know already your Cicero from your Seneca and your Caesar from your Augustus, I reccommend skipping it, because all the rest is truly good.
It's not news that the Julio-Claudians, Rome's first imperial dynasty, provide excellent multigenerational soap opera material (see I, Claudius and its many imitations), which comes in handy for this particular book because, as the author states in the introduction, Agrippina the Younger, niece of Tiberius, sister to Caligula, third wife of Claudius and mother of Nero only shows up in her male relations' biographies, and there only sporadically until she marries Uncle Claudius. So we don't know much about her first two decades of life, and only a few things about her third, but our author covers for this by presenting them as a learning arc (aka what NOT to do) for her central subject and thus has license to cover what Agrippina must have witnessed. This also has the effect of giving you the feeling of a portrait emerging.
Southon is soundly septical towards several of the most sensational claims, pointing out contradictions or the way they got expanded by subsequent historians through the centuries, but otoh likes a gossipy tale as much as any, and isn't so defensive of Agrippina as to dismiss all and any instances of negative reporting. (Though she does make mincemeat of some.) Nor does she vilify Agrippina's opponents; she's as ready to point out inherent Roman misogyny in the reporting on Messalina as she is on Agrippina. But she highlights the sheer competence of her woman, and manages to keep the background (i.e. youth where the older brothers and mother get banished and/or murdered like flies) alive. And she has a great (and dark) sense of humor, without coming across as cheaply cynical. In short, she came across as the ideal Agrippina biographer to me, and I can reccommend the book wholeheartedly.