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  • The Ruler’s House: Contesting Power and Privacy in Julio-Claudian Rome by Harriet Fertik
  • Caitlin Gillespie
Harriet Fertik. The Ruler’s House: Contesting Power and Privacy in Julio-Claudian Rome. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019. Pp. x, 241. $54.95. ISBN 978-1-4214-3289-2.

In The Ruler’s House, Fertik analyzes the ways in which the emperor’s house contributed to questions of power, privacy, and authority in Julio-Claudian Rome. Fertik uses the house to reflect on the interdependence of ruler and ruled, and argues that the emperor’s lack of privacy exposed the contingency of his rule and lay open the vulnerabilities of the community as a whole. Her work builds on Kristina Milnor’s study of gender and domesticity in Augustan culture and furthers its interrogation of the concepts of public and private.1 Through turning her attention to audience, Fertik offers a new lens through which to view the emperor’s house.

The first three chapters illustrate Fertik’s range of material and interdisciplinary approach. Chapter 1 dives into Lucan’s Bellum Civile and demonstrates how the intimate relationships between Julius Caesar, Cato, and Pompey and their respective armies echo those of familial bonds of obligation and devotion. Within these armies, everyone becomes a member of the ruler’s house. Chapter 2 turns to the question of membership in the Domus Augusta. Municipal monuments represent different formations of the Domus Augusta that do not always match the image projected by the emperor. The chapter pivots to literary texts and applies feminist standpoint theory to Tacitus’ Annals, in which imperial women serve as interpreters of the new regime who elucidate the fragility of the emperor’s rule. In Agrippina the Younger, Fertik finds a “perceptive reader” whose perspective on politics is the “most reliable” (54). In Tacitus’ text, the emperor’s house emerges as the site where his authority is least secure. Chapter 3 shifts to material evidence: Augustus’ Palatine domus and Nero’s Domus Aurea made the position of the emperor visible and created unique relationships between the emperor and his audience. While Augustus’ home advertised his modesty, Nero’s vast complex promoted otium and was accessible to many. Tiberius’ Villa Iovis on Capri appeared remote but was still designed to accommodate and impress visitors.

Chapters 4 through 6 address the idea of mutual vulnerability and the interdependence of ruler and ruled. Chapter 4 exposes the visibility of the ruler in Seneca’s De Clementia, Thyestes, and Agamemnon. This visibility asserts the ruler’s dominance while forcing the community to acknowledge its complicity in sustaining the ruler’s dominance. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of Seneca’s own role in supporting and then attempting to disrupt Nero’s rule. Chapter 5 pivots to images of the theater in elite homes of Roman Pompeii. Frescoes with theatrical imagery and multifunctional spaces advertised the householder’s dominance while also acknowledging an interdependence and intimacy between householder and visitor. Images of the scaenae frons point to the prestige of the householder as well as the role of the visitors who must recognize the householder as worthy of esteem. Fertik returns to standpoint theory to examine the female gaze in Pompeian frescoes as a guide to direct the viewer. Chapter 6 discusses the daily life of the house in Petronius’ Satyricon and Seneca’s De [End Page 106] Ira. Banquets, bathing, and using the toilet at the ruler’s house challenge the hierarchy of ruler and ruled, compelling the ruler to acknowledge an essential equality amongst all members of the community. Through discussing his own bodily functions at his dinner party, Trimalchio portrays himself as a role model. In the De Ira, Seneca’s rulers demonstrate dominance as well as their shared humanity with their subjects through banqueting. Fertik’s conclusion considers the delatores and maiestas trials under Tiberius in Tacitus’ Annals. While the delatores attack the privacy of the elite, maiestas trials suggest one way to mitigate potential risks to the community. Tacitus’ narratives of invasions into private life are comparable to privacy risks in a digital age.

Fertik’s discussion of the ruler’s domus is limited neither to Rome...

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