Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Echoes of Jezebel in Roman queens Tullia and Tanaquil





Part One:
Queen Jezebel’s considerable influence

 



 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 
  

 

“Jezebel’s character isn’t particularly analyzed in the Bible, but her actions reflect a calloused and manipulative queen. She wielded her gender traits like a honed sabre, twisting the desires of weaker men to suit her own lusts”.

 

 
  

 

Old Testament Queen Jezebel’s vivid image as a scarlet woman has echoed down through the centuries, beginning with her New Testament ‘reincarnation’ in Revelation 2:20. See my series: 

 

Two Jezebels are worse than one. Part One: Old and New Testament Jezebel  

 


 

Two Jezebels are worse than one. Part Two: Who was Apocalypse’s “Jezebel”?

 


 

Two Jezebels Are Worse Than One. Part Three: "Jezebel" mirrors the scarlet "woman"

 


 



 

And she has influenced some famous literature, notably Shakespeare’s bloody Lady Macbeth. In an article, “A Comparison of Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth and Biblical Jezebel”: https://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/a-comparison-of-shakespeares-lady-macbeth-and-biblical-jezebel-mCiZpWBT for instance, we read:

 

….

Social constructs possess an oxymoronic quality in that they can be easily shattered by a daring few. The thrill of acting beyond society’s standards triggers the growth of revolutionaries without consideration to the time period or subject matter. This desire for rebellion was undoubtedly forged during mankind’s downfall in the Garden of Eden. Shakespeare utilizes such desires in “Macbeth”, which possess a striking similarity to Biblical characters of old. Lady Macbeth is unequivocally tied to Jezebel, and their respective stories illustrate a combined warning to those who abuse God-given power.

Both women possess primarily masculine character traits in time periods where feminine standards called for meekness and subservience. Jezebel’s character isn’t particularly analyzed in the Bible, but her actions reflect a calloused and manipulative queen. She wielded her gender traits like a honed sabre, twisting the desires of weaker men to suit her own lusts. Jezebel led faithful rulers such as Ahab down tunnels of idolatry and lust; these successful corruptions fed her ego as well as her thirst for power. Lady Macbeth reiterates these values from the moment she surfaces in the play. Her very first lines are devoted to plotting the murder of King Duncan.

She berates Macbeth for faltering in his moral resolve. Lady Macbeth even goes so far as to insult Macbeth’s own integrity as a man. These evidences display a common core of manipulation that both woman have acquired, despite the wildly different setting and time period.

Lady Macbeth and Jezebel subscribe to harmful belief systems, which are forced upon their spouses. ….

[End of quote]

 

Furthermore, it would be interesting to know just how many queens of supposed AD history, especially queens Isabelle (or a variant of that name), have been described as “a second Jezebel”, or something similar. I have managed to compile a fair list of them. For example:

 

Queen Brunhild the 'second Jezebel'

 


 

Isabella of Bavaria 'like haughty Jezebel'

 

https://www.academia.edu/35177941/Isabella_of_Bavaria_like_haughty_Jezebel

 

Isabella of France, ‘iron virago’, ‘Jezebel’

 


 

Isabella of Angouleme ‘more Jezebel than Isabel’

 


 

such comparisons leading to my article, querying:

 

Isabelle (is a belle) inevitably a Jezebel?

 


 

 

Part Two:
Supposed Roman queens considered Jezebel-like
 
 
 
“You start off with this Roman history by Livy with these two strong female figures
who encourage, or bully, their husbands to seize the throne and do so with appeals
to manhood and masculinity”.
 
 
  
 
 
One has to wonder which - if any - of the various queens down through the centuries who has been designated a Queen Jezebel type of character (see Part One of this series: https://www.academia.edu/37998271/Echoes_of_Jezebel_in_Roman_queens_Tullia_and_Tanaquil._Part_One_Queen_Jezebels_considerable_influence) was actually a true historical personage.
 
I would suspect that, based on the unreliable character of textbook Roman history - see e.g. my:
 
Horrible Histories. Retracting Romans
 
 
queens Tullia and Tanaquil definitely were not – {“Tullia, a 'semi-legendary' figure in Roman history”, see below}.
 
Some British East Anglia researchers think that Tullia and Tanaquil may have inspired Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. This is fitting because we already found, in Part One, that Queen Jezebel was a likely inspiration for Lady Macbeth.
 
…. Two ruthless Roman queens may have been the real inspiration for Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth, according to academics.
Experts at East Anglia University in Norfolk believe the great bard may have drawn on historical references to the queens Tanaquil and Tullia for his tragedy, which was first performed in 1611. 
One of Shakespeare's best known plays, Macbeth tells the story of a Scottish general whose ambitious wife urges him to commit murder to accede to the throne.
 
It was recently adapted for the big screen in a film starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard.
University lecturer Dr John-Mark Philo has suggested that the playwright may have borrowed ideas from Roman history as a character basis for the scheming Lady Macbeth, the Observer reports.
 
Shakespeare may have learned about Tanaquil and Tullia when examining texts by the writer William Painter.
Tanaquil was the wife of the fifth king of Rome and Tullia who, the Observer reports, was responsible for bringing a tyrant the … throne.
 
THE SCHEMING QUEENS WHO MAY HAVE INSPIRED SHAKESPEARE 
 
Tullia, a 'semi-legendary' figure in Roman history was the last queen of Rome from 535 BC to 509 BC and the younger daughter of Rome's sixth king, Servius Tullius.
She married Lucius Tarquinius and, along with her husband, is said to have arranged the overthrow and murder of her father, securing the throne for her husband. 
Legend has it that she encouraged her new husband to seize power - and he launched Servius Tullius into the street where he was murdered. After hailing her husband as king, she is said to have driven her carriage over her father's mutilated remains.
Her actions made her an infamous figure in ancient Roman culture.
 
Tanaquil was the wife of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome. She had four children. One of her daughters became the wife to Servius Tullius.
Tanaquil is said to have encouraged her husband to relocate to Rome and used her prophetic abilities to install him as king. 
Tarquin ruled from 616 to 579 BCE and later Tanaquil helped to install Servius Tullius as the next king. 
According to Philo Painter was 'obsessed with women who step outside what’s expected of them, what is seen as the natural bounds for women during the period'. 
'He’s obsessed with extraordinary women,' Philo added. 'It’s not coincidence that this is the first decade of the reign of Elizabeth I. He hones in on these two Roman queens, and I think that’s where Shakespeare gets his Lady Macbeth.'
 
Philo believes Shakespeare may have taken 'significant chunks' from Painter's translation of text from the Roman history writer Livy.
The lecturer said: 'These women have one foot in reality and another foot in embellishment and fiction.
'You start off with this Roman history by Livy with these two strong female figures who encourage, or bully, their husbands to seize the throne and do so with appeals to manhood and masculinity.'
Livy reportedly documents how Tanaquil once told her husband to take action 'if he is a man' while Tullia is said to have criticised her partner by saying he had his brothers' 'effeminate heart'.
In Shakespeare's play, Lady Macbeth also taunts her husband when she says: 'Art thou afeard, To be the same in thine own act and valour, As thou art in desire?' ….
 
[End of quote]
 
From this we learn that Queen Tullia allegedly drove “her carriage over her father's mutilated remains”. But isn’t this precisely what happened to Queen Jezebel?
2 Kings 9:33: “… they threw [Jezebel] out the window, and her blood spattered against the wall and on the horses. And Jehu trampled her body under his horses’ hooves”.
 
Image result for death of jezebel;
 
Helena Zlotnick, on the other hand, interestingly attempts to make comparison of Tullia with the very unlike Jezebel, Queen Esther (in Biblica 82, 2001, 477-495): http://prophetess.lstc.edu/~rklein/Documents/Zlotnick.htm
 
From Jezebel to Esther:
Fashioning Images of Queenship in the Hebrew Bible
 
....
 
II. The Two Faces of Queenship
 
Casting an Esther as a Jezebel carried, potentially, dangerous connotations. The hostility of biblical narrators to queens who, like Jezebel, usurp the role of kings in a manner that highlights the limitations of kingly power and the breakdown of male authority within the home is undisguised. It finds an amplified echo in the annals of the early Roman monarchy (6th century BCE) which chart the career of two queens, Tanaquil and Tullia, who bear curious similarities to the biblical female monarchs. Because Roman authors are considerably more expansive than biblical narrators they provide valuable insights into the process that molded queenly images in antiquity.
In the hindsight of several centuries, the history of early Rome emerges in the pages of the historian Livy (57-14 BCE) as a family narrative dominated by the ambitions of its female members and punctuated by their sense of honor and shame9. Of these, Tullia, like Jezebel, is a daughter of a king (Servius Tullius). Her husband, Tarquinius (Superbus), is likewise a son of a monarch (Tarquinius Priscus) who, however, had designated another man, a non-relative, as his successor. To win the stakes in the complicated game of succession
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the couple embarks on a career of crimes, including the murder of their first respective spouses and the killing of Tullia’s father, the reigning ruler. Although apparently a match made in heaven, Livy shows no hesitation in casting Tullia as the moving spirit behind the rocky ride to the throne of Rome.
Echoing what Jezebel might have said to Ahab, had the text been recorded and transmitted in full, Tullia addresses her husband as follows:
If you are the man I thought I was marrying, then show yourself to be a man and a king. If not ... you have compounded a crime with cowardice. What is the matter with you? You are not from Corinth or from Tarquinii, like your father, nor is it necessary for you to make yourself a king in a foreign land. The gods of your family, your ancestors, the image of your father, the royal palace, its throne and the very name Tarquinius make and proclaim you king. Why else, if your spirit is too mean to (undertake) this, do you deceive the city? Why do you allow yourself to be looked upon as a prince? Depart to Taquinii or Corinth where you can sink once more into oblivion...10.
Focusing on the interaction between the family and the state as two social entities Livy shows how the privileging of the family interest at the expense of public duty generates chaos11. Tullia and Tarquinius base their claim to the kingship on kinship alone, thus reversing and subverting the principle of merit and of inclusion on which the Roman royal succession had been established from the start. Jezebel ‘vindicates’ the king who is also her husband, thereby undermining the foundations of the royal system of dispensing justice.
In Livy’s landscape of early Rome the palace is the focus and the symbol of the couple’s unbridled ambitions. From the seclusion of their domestic space Tullia and Tarquinius launch their criminal activities. When Tarquinius appears in the curia (= senate house) with an armed bodyguard, Tullia burst on the scene and hails him as king. Her action and gesture constitute a double transgression. Not only does she violate the physical boundaries of males’ space by intruding into male business in the forum, but she also crosses the frontiers of male authority by being the first to confer royalty on a man in public.
Responding to censure, not the least from her own husband, Tullia
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defends herself by appealing to another queenly model. She regards herself as a faithful imitator, if not an improved version of Tanaquil, her mother-in-law who had been instrumental in helping her own husband (Tarquinius Priscus) to become a king at Rome, and who had ensured the smooth transfer of power to a successor she herself had chosen (Servius Tullius, Tullia’s father).
Livy’s presentation of Tanaquil is ambiguous. In his words, she is ‘a woman of the most exalted birth and not of a character lightly to endure a humbler rank in her new [Roman] environment than the one she had enjoyed by birth’12. To save the monarchy Tanaquil alters the deliberative process reserved for the senate and the people of Rome. When her husband falls victim to an assassination plot, she encourages Servius to take the reigns into his hands:
To you, Servius, if you are a man, belongs this kingdom, not to those who by the hands of others have committed a dastardly crime. Arouse yourself and follow the guidance of the gods ... Now is the time ... Rise up to the occasion. We, too, although foreigners, ruled over Rome. Consider who you are and not where you were born. If your judgement is numb in so sudden a crisis then follow my council 13.
The fact that Livy leaves the ultimate tribute to Tanaquil in Tullia’s hands reflects a deep-seated uneasiness with the assumption of male power by women, laudable as their intentions and ultimate results might have been. Although Tanaquil’s resourcefulness saves the dynasty that she had created she also violates male norms by claiming a higher authority than the traditional mos maiorum (custom) would have allowed any woman, queens included. By setting herself and her late husband as models for Tullius to be imitated, Tanaquil also paves the way to Tullia.
As the biblical narrative recreates Jewish queenship in the scroll of Esther, the leading female character undergoes the same kind of transformation that underlies the Tanaquil-to-Tullia process, but in reverse. To begin with, Esther is not only Jewish but a woman with impeccable royal (Jewish) blood in her veins. Jezebel is constantly branded a foreigner in a manner that reflects not only her ethnicity but also her proclivities14. In the redactional history of the Hebrew Bible
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the Deuteronomist antipathy to foreigners, and particularly to foreign queens, has been associated with a deep-seated fear of idolatry through contamination15. The elevation of foreigners to Rome’s throne, by contrast, reflects Rome’s greatness and her openness to strangers, while Tullia’s urging of her husband to seize the throne on the ground of his ‘nativeness’ is clearly misplaced.
The scroll depicts the decree of Ahasuerus-Haman ordering the elimination of the Jews as a writ of national emergency. The clash between Ahab and Naboth appears, at first, as carrying little import beyond the king’s petty desire to expand to plant vegetables. Yet behind the issue of the vineyard versus royal garden lurks the larger question of the legitimate scope of monarchical actions vis-à-vis the king’s subjects16. In the Esther scroll the queen reacts to a patriarchal call to action and only exercises her potential royal power to save her people, as Tanaquil does to save Rome from revolution. Jezebel, like Tullia, acts on her own initiative, subverting male standards of royal behavior.
Just how perilously close to each other are, nevertheless, constructs of royal women like Tanaquil and Tullia on the one hand, and Jezebel and Esther on the other, can be further gauged from the attitude of all the texts to the public appearance of queens. Roman and Jewish authors are unanimous in banning women from the public eye. Jezebel and Esther never appear in public. Tanaquil makes a single public appearance when there is no one else who can save the dynasty. Even then she remains standing at a window in the palace, shielded by its walls. Tullia’s venturing into the forum invokes censure by her husband, and by the historian Livy. But Tanaquil’s position near a top window, although emphasizing Tullia’s boldness in venturing outdoors, also signifies the female usurpation of male authority at home. Ultimately, both women embark on a course of action that contradicts male expectations of female royalty. Nevertheless Tanaquil garners praise while Tullia is condemned.
Jezebel’s sole ‘public’ appearance is made as a spectator standing at the window of the palace that another king is about to possess. Observing the approach of Jehu, she stands at the window as a visual
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reminder of the legitimacy of her royal position and of his usurpation. Her words reinforce the image that her presence conveys: ‘Is it peace, Zimri, murderer of his master?’ (2 Kgs 9,30). Her words, like Tanaquil’s to Tullius, are filtered through space and the conventions of official language as she faces the successor of her dynasty and her ultimate executioner17.
Esther is never seen or heard addressing directly any man besides her husband and cousin/father. In fact, no biblical narrator or redactor ventured to place either queen, Jezebel or Esther, outside the confines of the palace itself. Both women use messengers to gather information and agents to convey their commands and their threats. Yet, like Tanaquil and Tullia, the two biblical queens were destined for vastly disparate ‘after-life’. In collective memory Jezebel became a stereotype of shrewish and detestable queens18. Esther’s adventures are still celebrated. ....
 

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