Epicharis (freedmen)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Epicharis († 65 AD in Rome ) was a freedman who was initiated into the failed Pisonian conspiracy against the Roman emperor Nero and who, after its discovery, did not divulge the names of her co-conspirators even under torture , but committed suicide.

Role in the Pisonian Conspiracy

By 65 AD at the latest, a widespread conspiracy consisting of senators , knights and members of the guard and named after Gaius Calpurnius Piso had formed against Nero . Epicharis also took part in this. The Roman historian Tacitus states that it is unknown why Epicharis came up with the plot. According to Polyainos , however, she was the lover of Seneca's brother Marcus Annaeus Mela and could have learned of the conspiracy because of this relationship. After the execution of the assassination attempt had been postponed several times, she wanted to advance the preparations herself. She traveled to Campania to win the command of the fleet at Misenum , and in this sense took the ship's officer, whom she knew, Volusius Proculus, into her confidence. He had participated in the murder of Agrippina requested by Nero , but was dissatisfied with the reward he received. Although Epicharis now inaugurated Proculus in the planned plot, she withheld the names of the participants out of caution. Proculus then did not act in the sense of the freedmen, but betrayed their revelations to the emperor. Thereupon Epicharis was interrogated, but could shake the credibility of the statements of the Proculus, since the latter could not provide any solid evidence. However, Epicharis continued to be held as a suspect.

In the meantime, the assassination plans continued until Milichus , a suspicious freedman of Senator Flavius ​​Scaevinus , who belonged to the conspirators, made another report to the emperor. When the investigation was initiated, Scaevinus and Natalis, who was also arrested, a close confidante of Pisos, did not even face the instruments of torture and disclosed the names of their co-conspirators. Nero then had the still imprisoned Epicharis tortured. He hoped that the torture of the ordeal would make it all the easier to extort information from her as a woman. But even by increasing the torture, no revelations could be drawn from her. The next day the torture was continued. Because Epicharis' limbs were dislocated and she could no longer walk, she was carried to the torture site on a chair. She secretly loosened her bosom tie, made a noose out of it, and fastened it to her chair. Then she stuck her head through the noose, let herself fall with the full force of her body, and in this way strangled herself. Tacitus praises the courageous behavior of the Epicharis, although she was only a woman and freedman, as a noble example and contrasts this with the behavior of high-ranking knights and senators who would have betrayed even close relatives without the use of torture.

Daniel Casper von Lohenstein wrote the tragedy Epicharis in 1665 . The French poet Augustin Louis Ximenès used the material for the tragedy Epicharis, ou la mort de Neron (1753).

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 15, 51 .
  2. ↑ Polyainos, Strategika 8, 62.
  3. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 15, 51.
  4. ^ Tacitus, Annalen 15, 54ff.
  5. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 15, 57; Cassius Dio 62, 27, 3.
personal data
SURNAME Epicharis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman freedmen, confidante of the Pisonian conspiracy
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH 65
Place of death Rome