Antonia Caenis or Cenide, (died 74 AD) a former slave and secretary of
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 the Emperor Calig ...
(mother of the emperor
Claudius
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54) was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusu ...
), was
Roman emperor Vespasian's ''
contubernalis''.
Life
It could be thought that she had family in
Istria
Istria ( ; Croatian language, Croatian and Slovene language, Slovene: ; ist, Eîstria; Istro-Romanian language, Istro-Romanian, Italian language, Italian and Venetian language, Venetian: ; formerly in Latin and in Ancient Greek) is the larges ...
, now in
Croatia, based on a trip she took there (Suet. Dom. 12.3). In her 30s Caenis, still possibly a slave, was in an unofficial type of relationship with Vespasian, known as ''
contubernium'', before his marriage. According to
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire.
His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...
, after the death of Vespasian's wife
Flavia Domitilla, Vespasian and Caenis, now a freedwoman, resumed their relationship; she was his wife "in all but name" until her death in AD 74.
She had a remarkable memory and considerable influence on the emperor's administration, carried out official business on his behalf, and apparently made a lot of money from her position. However, she was treated with disrespect by Vespasian's son
Domitian, who refused to greet her as one of the family.
Popular culture
The life of Caenis and her love-story with Vespasian is portrayed in
Lindsey Davis' novel ''
The Course of Honour''.
She is also a character who features regularly in Robert Fabbri's ''Vespasian'' series, where she is depicted as being the long lost grand-niece of the king of the Caenii, a rebelling tribe in Thracia.
Robert Graves
Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...
, in his short story "Caenis on Incest," used her as a kind of foil to present what he thought to be the underlying reason for the power-related murders chronicled in
I Claudius. The story is included in his compendium "Occupation: Writer," and he admits having missed the real reason for the murders in the introduction to that anthology.
[ "Caenis on Incest A.D. 75 (1946)" from "Occupation: Writer" Universal Library, Grosset and Dunlap, 1950]
See also
*
List of slaves
*
Claudia Acte
*
Galeria Lysistrate
*
Marcia (mistress of Commodus)
Marcia Aurelia Ceionia Demetrias (died 193) was the mistress (182–193) and one of the assassins of Roman Emperor Commodus. Marcia was likely to have been the daughter of Marcus Aurelius Sabinianus Euhodius, a freedman of the co-emperor Luc ...
References
Sources
*
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; c. AD 69 – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire.
His most important surviving work is a set of biographies ...
, ''
Lives of the Twelve Caesars''
''Vespasian'' 3
*Dio Cassius
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 on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...
, ''Roman History'
66.14
* William Smith (1870), ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caenis
74 deaths
1st-century Roman women
Emperor's slaves and freedmen
Year of birth unknown
Vespasian
Mistresses of Roman royalty
Concubines