Narcissus

Narcissus (died ad 54) was a freedman who used his position as correspondence secretary (ab epistulis) to the Roman emperor Claudius (ruled 41–54) to become, in effect, a minister of state.

Narcissus exercised great influence over Claudius and amassed the enormous personal fortune of 400 million sesterces. In 43 he represented Claudius in Gaul, overseeing the departure of the army for the invasion of Britain; that military success was the basis of Claudius’s enduring popularity. Narcissus collaborated with Claudius’s third wife, Valeria Messalina, in protecting Claudius from various attacks. In 48 Messalina went through a marriage ceremony with her lover, the consul Gaius Silius. Narcissus informed Claudius, who was stunned and confused, and Narcissus obtained the emperor’s permission to execute the lovers and their prominent associates. For his service to the emperor he was awarded the right to wear the decorations and garb of a quaestor (the lowest regular magistrate) and to be treated accordingly on public occasions (although he was not made a member of the Senate).

His power soon eroded. In 49 Claudius married his own niece Julia Agrippina (Agrippina the Younger) instead of Narcissus’s candidate. The freedman Marcus Antonius Pallas, who had promoted Agrippina’s cause (and was rumoured to be her lover), received the right to wear the decorations and garb of a praetor, a magisterial rank superior to that of quaestor. Under their influence, Claudius recognized as his heir Agrippina’s son (with Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus), Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, instead of his own son, Britannicus, who had been supported by Narcissus. In 52 Narcissus mismanaged the draining of the Fucine Lake (a project that was not fully successful until the 19th century). When Claudius died in 54—poisoned by Agrippina, it was popularly thought—her son, the new emperor, who had taken the name Nero, had Narcissus arrested and compelled him to commit suicide.