Apicata


Apicata was a woman of the 1st century AD in ancient Rome. She was married to Sejanus, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius.

Biography

Early life

Apicata may have been the daughter of Marcus Gavius Apicius, a gourmet who knew Sejanus when he later was a young man.

Marriage

Apicata had bore Sejanus three children. He divorced her in the year 23 AD, when it seemed he might be able to marry his lover and co-conspirator Livilla, the wife of Drusus Julius Caesar. Drusus was a challenger to Sejanus's quest for power, but died in 23. Sejanus was reportedly seeking the imperial seat for himself and marriage to a member of the imperial family would have made his claim more plausible.

Accusation against Sejanus and death

Eight years later, in 31, Sejanus was accused of crimes severe enough to warrant his immediate execution, and he was killed. Sejanus and Apicata's three children were to be put to death as well so that Sejanus's line might have no more heirs. Their eldest son, Strabo, was executed six days later. According to Cassius Dio, Apicata wrote a letter to Tiberius accusing Sejanus and Livilla of having conspired to murder Drusus eight years earlier. Before the executions of her younger two children, Aelia Iunilla and Capito Aelianus, Apicata herself committed suicide.
How Apicata came to be aware of Sejanus's crime is not known, as is whether the accusation was true at all, but her accusation was taken seriously. Tiberius had Livilla's slave Lygdus and Livilla's physician Eudemus tortured in order to extract a confirmation of this accusation.
Livilla was convicted. Her co-conspirators were condemned to death, though Dio reports that Livilla herself may have been spared from public execution "out of regard for her mother Antonia." It is not certain how Livilla died. The sources speculate that she was either executed privately or committed suicide. According to the historian Cassius Dio, Livilla was given over to her mother, Antonia Minor, who had Livilla starved to death.

Legacy

The modern narrative of Apicata often renders her as an avenger on a treacherous husband and the woman of higher station who broke up her marriage, and possibly scheming as much as her ex-husband, especially if her accusations were not true; contemporary epigraphy suggests in her time she elicited little sympathy and was seen as treacherous herself, and tainted by association with Sejanus.