Vibulenus Agrippa
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- For others with this surname, see Agrippa (disambiguation).
Vibulenus Agrippa was a Roman knight of the Equestrian rank who was accused of some crime, probably treason, before the senate in the final years of the reign of Tiberius, in 36 AD.[1] His case is often mentioned to highlight the frequency with which ordinary citizens were being executed in that time, and for the novelty of the case's outcome: Vibulenus faced his accusers in the senate and swallowed poison that he had brought with him in a ring.[2][3]
Undeterred, the lictors rushed his body to the prison (the tullianum) and hanged or strangled him anyway, but he was already dead.[4] Unlike an execution, this sort of pre-emptive suicide prevented, at least in theory, the state or his accusers from claiming a share of his property,[5][6] and allowed the suicide to be buried, provided they died before being convicted.[7] Tacitus does not record whether Agrippa's mock execution in the tullianum was sufficient to satisfy the letter of the law and allow confiscation of his property.
[edit] References
- ^ Smith, William (1867), “Agrippa, Vibulenus”, in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, pp. 77
- ^ Tacitus, Annales vi. 40
- ^ Cassius Dio, lviii. 21
- ^ Lynam, Robert; John Tahourdin White (1850). The History of the Roman Emperors: From Augustus to the Death of Marcus Antoninus. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 204-205.
- ^ Edwards, Catharine (2007). Death in Ancient Rome. New Haven: Yale University Press, 246. ISBN 0-300-11208-4.
- ^ Plass, Paul (1995). The Game of Death in Ancient Rome: Arena Sport and Political Suicide. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 95. ISBN 0-299-14574-3.
- ^ Levick, Barbara (1999). Tiberius the Politician. Routledge, 188-189. ISBN 0-415-21753-9.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).
