Pontia

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Pontia was a Roman senatorial wife of the Neronian era who poisoned her two sons and killed herself.

Name and family

The sources unanimously name Pontia a daughter of Publius Petronius , a "Drymios" is named as her husband.

From the usual naming, Pontia should have been the daughter of a Pontius, but there were exceptions to this rule. This is how Poppaea Sabina named herself after her maternal grandfather.

Because of the similarity of her Epicurean death and because she was also charged with a conspiracy against Nero, Pontia has been associated with Titus Petronius , the author of the Satyricon . As the daughter of the augur Publius Petronius , Pontia would be a sister of the poet born around the year 15, i.e. already around 50 years old in the Nero era.

The simplest explanation for this question is if Pontia were a close relative of Gaius Petronius Pontius Nigrinus , the consul of the year 37. In the year 62, his son Publius Petronius Niger was probably a suffect consul. This Publius Petronius shouldn't have been born too long before AD 19, and Pontia could be a daughter of this Publius Petronius born around 45.

Lemprière refers to her as the wife of Bolanus (without citing the source), which is likely to mean Marcus Vettius Bolanus , who was mentioned in the year 62 as the legionary legion of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo in the war of Armenia, who served as a suffect consul in 66 (he is probably in Born in the 1920s) and who was governor of Britain from 69 to 71. Under Vespasian he was accepted into the patriciate and in 76 was appointed proconsul of Asia. It is known that Bolanus was the father of twin brothers, one of whom, Vettius Crispinus, was the patron of Statius (approx. 40-96), the other, M. Vettius Bolanus, in 111 became consul. Accordingly, the twins were probably born before 68. Your mother should have been born before 50, more likely around 40.

Life

Martial mentions the name Pontia three times as the image of a sensual anti-mother who poisoned her sons (II 34, IV 43; VI 75, written after 85 AD), but without describing her deed in more detail:

O mater, qua nec Pontia deterior.

Juvenal becomes clearer a generation later:

"But Pontia calls: 'Yes, I did
yes, I confess I made aconite for the sons:
That is now openly discovered: a crime - and yet I committed it. '
'You two with the only dish, you angry viper?
You two? ' - 'And seven even if it was seven!' - "
(Juv. VI 638-642)

The scholiasts of Juvenal's satire report that she had convicted herself of the murder of her two sons, "delighted with plenty of wine and food" and then "perished while dancing with her veins cut (a thing that she was busy doing)."

If Probus, the person named in this context, is the famous philologist from the 2nd half of the 1st century, then this note comes from a contemporary of the events. However, the attribution of the Probus juvenal scholia is uncertain.

Another Scholiast adds that Pontia was banished because of a conspiracy against Nero (which is probably meant by the Pisonian conspiracy ).

Another note states that she killed her sons "for the money that her adulterer would give her for it."

literature

  • John Lemprière A Classical Dictionary (1850) (reprinted London 1994)
  • Barry Baldwin: Notes on the Tacitean Petronius (Annals 16.18-20) . In: Petronian Society Newsletter (PSN) , Articles & Reviews Archive 2001.
  • Barry Baldwin: Pontia's Pilates . In: PSN, Articles & Reviews Archive 2004.
  • Little Pauly . Volume 4, Col. 1148; Volume 5, Col. 1237.

Remarks

  1. ^ John Lemprière: A Classical Dictionary . 1850, p. 554 (reprinted London 1994).
  2. ^ Tacitus, Annalen 15, 3.
  3. ↑ The Little Pauly , Volume 5, Col. 1237.
  4. ↑ Little Pauly . Volume 4, Col. 1148.
personal data
SURNAME Pontia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pontia P. Petronii f.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman senator's daughter
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH before 69