Apicata was a woman of the 1st century AD in

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

. She was married to

Sejanus Lucius Aelius Sejanus ( – 18 October AD 31), commonly known as Sejanus (), was a Roman soldier and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Of the Equites class by birth, Sejanus rose to power as prefect of the Praetorian Guard, the imperia ...

, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus ( ; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Cl ...

Biography

Early life

Apicata may have been the daughter of

Marcus Gavius Apicius Marcus Gavius Apicius is believed to have been a Roman gourmet and lover of luxury, who lived sometime in the 1st century AD, during the reign of Tiberius. The Roman cookbook ''Apicius'' is often attributed to him, though it is impossible to prov ...

, a

gourmet Gourmet (, ) is a cultural idea associated with the culinary arts of fine food and drink, or haute cuisine, which is characterized by their high level of refined and elaborate food preparation techniques and displays of balanced meals that have ...

who knew Sejanus when the latter was a young man. The reason for this assumption is mainly her unusual name "Apicata", which was likely a nickname derived from a

cognomen A ''cognomen'' (; : ''cognomina''; from ''co-'' "together with" and ''(g)nomen'' "name") was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. Initially, it was a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditar ...

instead of a common name for a woman of a Roman family. The name of Sejanus wife can be found removed from an inscription but it appears to be a short name similar in length to Livia, Gavia would fit that. Jane Bellemore has disputed that the woman named on the inscription was Apicata, and that the name could have belonged to a later wife of Sejanus (possibly Livilla).

Marriage

Apicata had borne Sejanus three children. He divorced her in the year 23 AD, when it seemed he might be able to marry his lover and co-conspirator

Livilla Claudia Livia (Classical Latin: CLAVDIA•LIVIA; – AD 31) was the only daughter of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia Minor and sister to Roman Emperor Claudius and general Germanicus, and thus paternal aunt of emperor Caligula and mate ...

, the wife of

Drusus Julius Caesar Drusus Julius Caesar (7 October – 14 September AD 23), also called Drusus the Younger, was the son of Emperor Tiberius, and heir to the Roman Empire following the death of his adoptive brother Germanicus in AD 19. He was born at Rome to a ...

(son of Tiberius). Drusus was a challenger to Sejanus's quest for power, but died in 23. Sejanus was reportedly seeking the imperial seat for himself and marriage to a member of the imperial family would have made his claim more plausible.

Accusation against Sejanus and death

Eight years later, in 31, Sejanus was accused of crimes severe enough to warrant his immediate execution, and he was killed. Sejanus and Apicata's three children were to be put to death as well so that Sejanus's line might have no more heirs. Their eldest son, Strabo, was executed six days later. According to Cassius Dio, Apicata wrote a letter to Tiberius accusing Sejanus and Livilla of having conspired to murder Drusus eight years earlier. Before the executions of her younger two children, Aelia Iunilla and Capito Aelianus, Apicata herself committed suicide. he story should be read with caution. Barbara Levick says that Sejanus must have murdered Drusus in self-defense because only Tiberius stood between the Praetorian Prefect and the end of his career at the hands of Drusus. Furthermore, he says it is even less likely that Livilla would have been complicit in the destruction of her family, the key to her children's future. Levick dismisses the accusation of Apicata as the revenge of a woman whose husband left her for another.] How Apicata came to be aware of Sejanus's crime is not known, as is whether the accusation was true at all, but her accusation was taken seriously. Tiberius had Livilla's slave Lygdus and Livilla's physician Eudemus tortured in order to extract a confirmation of this accusation.https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Annals/4A*.html, Ann. 4.11 Livilla was convicted. Her co-conspirators were condemned to death, though Dio reports that Livilla herself may have been spared from public execution "out of regard for her mother Antonia."Cassius Dio Histories 58.11.7 It is not certain how Livilla died. The sources speculate that she was either executed privately or committed suicide. According to the historian

Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history of ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

, Livilla was given over to her mother,

Antonia Minor Antonia Minor (31 January 36 BC – 1 May 37 AD) was the younger of two surviving daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor. She was a niece of the Emperor Augustus, sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal grandmother of ...

, who had Livilla starved to death.

Legacy

The modern narrative of Apicata often renders her as an avenger on a treacherous husband and the woman of higher station who broke up her marriage, and possibly scheming as much as her ex-husband, especially if her accusations were not true; contemporary

epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

suggests in her time she elicited little sympathy and was seen as treacherous herself, and tainted by association with Sejanus.

Notes

References

Works cited

* {{Authority control 31 deaths 1st-century Roman women 1st-century Romans Suicides in Ancient Rome Gavii