Drama Queen

by Eliezer Segal

November 1670 was a momentous month in the life of the Paris theatrical world. It marked the openings of ambitious productions by two of France’s foremost dramatists, Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine. Both plays dealt with the same historical subject: the Roman emperor Titus and his doomed relationship with his Jewish consort Berenice. Corneille at the time was an established “grand old man” of the French theatre, whereas Racine at age 31 was a rising star.

Both dramas were based on the same historical foundation as recorded by ancient historians. 

Berenice and her brother Agrippa were among the last survivors of the Judean royal line, great-grandchildren of Herod the Great. The chroniclers wrote of her irresistible beauty which opened doors of both romantic and political opportunity.

Dio Cassius wrote that at the height of her influence Berenice came to Rome with Agrippa who was awarded the rank of praetor. Meanwhile she dwelt in the imperial palace with the emperor Titus. “She expected to marry him and was already behaving in every respect as if she were his wife; but when he perceived that the Romans were displeased with the situation, he dismissed her.”

Although Jewish readers will naturally be most intrigued by the ironic circumstance of an affair between a Jewish woman and the heathen emperor who destroyed Jerusalem and its holy temple, this aspect of the story was not emphasized either by ancient historians or modern dramatists. Evidently, what made Berenice unacceptable as Titus’s queen was not her Jewish identity, but the mere fact that she was a foreigner.

Corneille’s play, though based loosely on historical facts, has the ambiance of a domestic soap opera involving an eternal, er, quadrangle. Titus was slated by his father Vespasian to marry Domitia, though he was in love with queen Berenice of Judea. However, Titus’s younger brother Domitian and Domitia shared a mutual passion. Since a marriage between Titus and a foreign monarch was forbidden under Roman law and unacceptable to public opinion, the characters spend their stage time vacillating between faithfulness to their romantic inclinations and obedience to their patriotic duties. In the end, they arrange matters such that Domitian marries Domitia, Berenice leaves Rome and Titus remains without an empress. (If you are not impressed by this convoluted plot, you are in the same boat as Voltaire who rated it as “détestable,” one of the worst plays in the history of the French theatre.)

Jean Racine’s story-line is much simpler. There is no rival couple to Berenice and Titus, only a single, very sympathetic figure: Antiochus IV of Commagene, an ally of the Romans who had assisted Vespasian in his Judean campaign. I am not aware of any actual historical mention of his involvement with Berenice. Racine portrays him as a man who for many years nursed a powerful passion for her, but kept it to himself, acting as her platonic best friend and advisor. 

The story is set shortly after the death of Vespasian.  Titus quickly comes to realize that his marriage to a Judean queen is no longer an option on account of laws that have their roots in Rome’s transitions from monarchy to republic and empire. When his advisors suggest that the craven senate can easily be intimidated to abolish the problematic law (as they had routinely done for tyrants like Caligula and Nero), Titus objects that the will of the Roman populace would never tolerate it.

This contrasts with Corneille’s portrayal of Berenice, who actively chooses, as an assertion of her regal pride and “gloire,” to withdraw rather than compromise her dignity by marrying a man whose commitment to her is less than certain.

Much of Racine’s dialogue dwells on the paradox of how the world’s most powerful political and military leader is denied the simple romantic pleasure that is permitted to commoners. Berenice argues that Titus should abdicate his imperial position to follow his heart, but he chooses to uphold his duty and dismiss her. This would seem to present a perfect opportunity for Antiochus to step in and marry the jilted lady on the rebound, but as a loyal ally he is reluctant to take advantage of the situation.

Both plays depict Berenice as a woman impelled by her emotions, pitted against the inflexible realities of law and politics. Historians have generally favoured the opposite characterization, regarding her as a shrewd and opportunistic strategist motivated by a single-minded aspiration to become empress of Rome. 

In all this, her status as a Jew is difficult to estimate. I know of only one place in Corneille’s script where Domitius speaks of Titus’s grounds for gratitude to Berenice “for having extended his victory over my homeland, having ransacked and destroyed it eagerly, and overturned the altar of the god I served.”

Both French playwrights built their dramas on what they found in Suetonius’s and Plutarch’s biographies of Titus. They might have seen matters quite differently if they had consulted other sources, especially Josephus Flavius. From him we learn how seriously Berenice took her Judaism. As a young girl she entered three marriages of political and economic convenience to Jewish husbands. For the last of these, to Polemo King of Cilicia, she demanded that he adopt the Jewish religion and undergo circumcision.

Josephus tells us that prior to the outbreak of the rebellion Berenice was present in  Jerusalem to fulfill a pious “nazirite” vow in thanksgiving for surviving an illness. She was determined to intervene with the Roman governor Gessius Florus who had been provoking the Jews with cruel abuses. Although her vow required her to shave her hair, the queen humbled herself by walking barefoot to the palace to present her petition. She was unsuccessful at this as she was in her subsequent efforts to dissuade the Jewish populace from rebellion.

All this places the Jewish queen in a very different light, as it does her problematic relationship with the destroyer of Jerusalem.

It might sound better in French—but hardly more accurate.

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