Locusta is known from a few passages in four Roman writers: Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio and Juvenal. In their accounts she was a woman condemned in a Roman court for veneficium, the crime of preparing and supplying lethal drugs, who was then used by the imperial household. Agrippina the Younger is said to have called on her in AD 54, in connection with the death of her husband, the emperor Claudius. Nero is said to have called on her a year later, in connection with the death of Claudius's son Britannicus. Suetonius adds that Nero rewarded her. Cassius Dio reports that Galba, within months of Nero's fall, had her led through the city in chains and executed.
No trial record, indictment or witness statement survives for any of these events. Every death connected with her is a claim made by an ancient writer, and the writers did not record them at the time: Tacitus lived from about AD 55 to about 120, Suetonius from about AD 70 to 126 and Juvenal from AD 60 to 128, according to the dates given by the Women's Legacy Project, and Cassius Dio wrote in Greek. They agree on the outline and differ on details, and on one of the two deaths, that of Claudius, Suetonius does not mention Locusta at all. Her name is the one fixed point; the rest is attribution.
Tacitus and Suetonius write the name as Locusta. Juvenal, in the first of his Satires, writes Lucusta, and the Loeb English translation of Cassius Dio also gives Lucusta. Both forms are in use in modern reference works.
Her origin is given in some modern reference works as Gaul. Women in World History, published on Encyclopedia.com, says she was said to be of Gallic origin, and the Women's Legacy Project lists her under France. Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio and Juvenal name her without saying where she was from. The Gallic origin is therefore a modern statement whose ancient basis is not on record. Her dates of birth and death are likewise not recorded, and nothing is said about her family, her education or how she learned the work she is credited with.
To understand what "condemned" means for a woman in her position, the law is the starting point. William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities defines veneficium as the crime of poisoning, a term also applied to drugs and charms, so that the words veneficus and venefica came in time to mean a sorcerer or sorceress more generally. The first law aimed specifically at the offense was Sulla's lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis, which Smith dates to 82 BC. It reached anyone who supplied lethal substances for that purpose, and it remained in force, with changes, into late antiquity. The penalties Smith reports from the jurist Marcian were deportation to an island with confiscation of property, and, in the time of Alexander Severus, death by exposure to wild beasts for persons of lower rank and deportation for those of higher rank. Smith's article gives no penalty specific to the first century AD, and none can be drawn from it for Locusta's case.
The charge was easy to bring and hard to test. David B. Kaufman, in a 1932 article in Classical Philology, notes that women in particular were accused of the crime, and that, as he puts it, the charge "was frequently brought against them without sufficient evidence of their guilt." He records that even Livy doubted the charges in the mass condemnations of matrons in 331 BC. A conviction for veneficium in Rome was therefore not, on its own, proof of what the convicted person had done. Locusta's earlier condemnation, which is the one legal fact the sources give about her, has to be read in that light, and none of the accounts says who accused her, what she was alleged to have done or which court heard the case.
Both Tacitus and Cassius Dio say she had been condemned shortly before she was first used by the palace. Tacitus, in the passage on the death of Claudius (Annals 12.66), describes her as a woman "nuper veneficii damnata et diu inter instrumenta regni habita": lately condemned for veneficium and long counted among the instruments of rule. Cassius Dio, in his account of the same events, says Agrippina sent for a woman named Lucusta who had recently been convicted on this very charge.
The two statements fit together only loosely. Tacitus says "lately" and "long" in the same sentence, and the sentence gives no date for the condemnation and does not say that she was punished. On the face of it the condemnation did not end her usefulness; she was held, in Tacitus's phrase, among the tools of government. Kaufman reads the passage the same way, writing that she "had been condemned to death but was saved to serve the leaders of state in their murderous practices." Neither Tacitus nor Dio says that a death sentence was passed, so that reading goes further than the ancient words.
The setting is the court of the emperor Claudius in the last year of his life. Agrippina, his wife, wanted the succession for her son Nero, Claudius's stepson. Claudius also had a son of his own, Britannicus. Tacitus reports that Agrippina feared Claudius, who was inclined to loose talk when drinking, might one day expose her past actions and punish her, and that Narcissus, an adviser close to Claudius, argued that Britannicus was the safest heir and urged the emperor to keep the boy close. Cassius Dio puts the matter more bluntly: Claudius, angered by what he was learning of Agrippina's conduct, looked to his son Britannicus and was preparing to end her power, and Agrippina, learning of it, took alarm and acted first.
Both writers are describing motive, and neither describes proof. Their shared account is one of palace rivalry in which the woman with the most to lose acts to protect her son's position. It is the kind of explanation that fits an ancient historian's expectations of a ruling house, and it is stated by authors who were hostile to Agrippina and Nero.
Tacitus reports that Claudius went to Sinuessa. Agrippina, who in his telling had long been resolved on the deed, saw her chance. Tacitus says an expert in such matters was chosen, Locusta by name, and names the eunuch Halotus, an attendant of the emperor, as the second person involved. Tacitus goes on to say that Agrippina concealed the death for a time, that she kept Britannicus close and watched the doors, and that she had word spread that the emperor was recovering while preparations for Nero were made.
Cassius Dio dates the death to the thirteenth of October, in the account of Claudius's life that gives him sixty-three years, two months and thirteen days. In Dio's telling Agrippina sent for Lucusta, recently convicted on this very charge, and Claudius died that night. In Tacitus's account Nero was then taken to the praetorian camp and hailed as emperor, and the Senate confirmed him; Claudius was given divine honors and a state funeral on the model of Augustus's, and his will was not read aloud, so that a stepson would not be seen to stand above Nero.
Suetonius is the third writer to treat the death, and his version differs in a way that matters. In his Life of Claudius, chapter 44, he states that it is the general belief that Claudius was killed, but that "when it was done and by whom is disputed." He lists two accounts: some name the eunuch Halotus, and others say Agrippina herself was responsible. Locusta is not named in that chapter. Suetonius adds that Agrippina was accused of many other crimes by her own conscience and by informers. The three accounts therefore agree that the belief existed, name Agrippina as the person with the motive, and disagree on the agent and on whether Locusta had any part.
Tacitus places the death of Britannicus in the following year and ties it to Nero's resentment. He says that Nero had come to resent the popularity of the boy after Britannicus sang at a festival in a way the audience took as a comment on the loss of his father's position, and that Agrippina's pressure sharpened the quarrel. World History Encyclopedia, in an article by Donald L. Wasson, dates the death to the eve of Britannicus's fourteenth birthday in AD 55, and relies on Tacitus and Suetonius for the story.
In Tacitus's account, chapter 15 of the thirteenth book, Nero could not order the death of Britannicus openly. The task passed to Pollio Julius, a tribune of a praetorian cohort, who held in his custody the woman Tacitus names as "damnata veneficii nomine Locusta, multa scelerum fama": Locusta, condemned for veneficium, with a large reputation for crimes. This is the only point at which the sources place her under guard. Tacitus does not say whether she was held as a prisoner under her old sentence or kept ready for use, and the custody is recorded only as a fact about who held her.
In Tacitus's telling Nero grew impatient, threatened the tribune and ordered that the woman be punished, on the reasoning that delay gave rumor time to spread and gave the boy's defenders time to organize. Britannicus died soon afterward. Cassius Dio does not name Locusta in connection with Britannicus; he says only, in the epitome of his sixty-first book, that Nero now treacherously murdered Britannicus. Suetonius, in his Life of Nero, chapter 33, says that Nero turned to Locusta.
Tacitus records how the death was presented. Nero gave out that the death had a natural cause. The funeral was held the same night and kept modest. Nero issued an edict saying that it was an ancestral custom to take early funerals out of public sight, without speeches or a procession, and he argued that the hopes of the state now rested on him as the only surviving member of the family, so that Senate and people should cherish him. Tacitus notes that Agrippina and Octavia showed visible feeling while hiding their fear and grief.
Tacitus also says that opinion was divided. Many people, Tacitus says, took the hasty funeral as a sign of guilt, and many others excused Nero by pointing to the family's long history of discord. That is the nearest any of the ancient writers comes to a contemporary reaction, and it is Tacitus writing decades afterward, not a record from the day.
Suetonius, in chapter 33 of the Life of Nero, is the source for what happened to Locusta afterward. He says Nero rewarded her for her services with a full pardon and large estates in the country, and that he actually sent her pupils. That sentence is the whole of the ancient evidence for the pardon, the estates and the pupils. It is consistent with Tacitus's phrase that she had long been counted among the instruments of rule, and with the pardon it implies that the earlier condemnation had not been carried out or had been set aside. No ancient passage says what she did with the estates, where they lay or how long she kept them.
Smith's article on veneficium repeats the tradition in a single line: that she was one of the best-known practitioners of the crime in the imperial age, that she acted at Agrippina's command in the case of Claudius and at Nero's in the case of Britannicus, and that Nero had people trained under her. Kaufman, writing in 1932, says the same thing in different words. Both are summarizing the ancient sources and neither adds an independent record.
Juvenal mentions her once, in the first of his Satires, a long attack on the vices of Rome. In line 71, in a passage about women who kill their husbands, he writes that "a better Lucusta" has instructed her inexperienced relatives, "instituitque rudes melior Lucusta propinquas". The sense is that Locusta had become a byword, and that the wives of Juvenal's own day outdid her as teachers of the craft. Juvenal's lines are satire, and they were written long after her time; they show that her name stayed in use as a shorthand for the crime. They do not add a fact about her life.
After Nero's fall, Cassius Dio reports, the emperor Galba dealt with a group of Nero's associates: in the case of Helius, Narcissus, Patrobius, Lucusta, the sorceress, and others of the scum that had risen to the surface in Nero's day, he ordered them to be led in chains throughout the whole city and then to be executed. Dio calls her "the sorceress," not a poisoner, and gives no charge, no trial and no date beyond the reign of Galba.
Modern reference works give the year as 68 or 69. Encyclopedia.com's Women in World History entry says Galba ordered her execution in 68 or 69 during his reign, and Britannica's short entry says 69. Galba held power only a few months, which is why the two years are in play. The ancient text gives the sentence and the manner of it, being led in chains through the city and then executed, and does not give a month.
Dio's list is the end of her story. Nothing in the ancient passages says she was tried before Galba, defended herself, or was asked about the deaths of Claudius and Britannicus. The execution is, like the deaths, a statement in a narrative; the narrative does not say that a court heard the matter.
Several points are unsettled, and they should be kept apart from what the writers actually say.
The first is her origin. Gaul appears in modern reference works, but the ancient passages that name her do not say where she was from.
The second is the number of her victims. Modern popular retellings give figures in the hundreds and describe a school where she trained others. The Women's Legacy Project itself marks this material as coming from less reliable later sources. The ancient texts name two deaths in connection with her, those of Claudius and Britannicus, and one reference, in Suetonius, to pupils. No ancient passage gives a count of victims, and no figure above two can be supported from them. Even the two deaths are attributions, not findings.
The third is the cause of Claudius's death. Suetonius calls the killing the general belief while saying that the time and the person are disputed, and he names Halotus and Agrippina but not Locusta. Tacitus and Dio name her. Kaufman's article warns that Roman accusations of this kind were hard to test, and that the sources are Latin literary texts and have to be read critically. A conviction or an accusation reported by an ancient writer is not the same thing as a finding that someone was killed by the person named.
The fourth is the earlier condemnation. Tacitus and Dio say she had been condemned or convicted. No court record, date or sentence is given, and the writers do not say whether the sentence was carried out. If she was later pardoned by Nero, as Suetonius says, the earlier condemnation was set aside, but no ancient writer links the two events in so many words.
The fifth is her execution. Dio names her among those Galba had led in chains and executed. The date is given as 68 or 69 in modern reference works, and the ancient passage names no charge.
Her afterlife rests on the fact that her name is attached to two of the best-known deaths in the Julio-Claudian house, and on the unusual way the ancient writers present her, as an adviser kept on the payroll of rulers and used by a succession of palace factions. Whether that picture is a true account of a real practitioner of the crime, or the kind of figure an ancient historian built to explain a death that had no other visible cause, cannot be settled from the texts. What can be said is narrower. Tacitus, Dio, Suetonius and Juvenal each treat her as a person the Roman public knew by name; the first two tie her to the death of an emperor; Tacitus and Suetonius tie her to the death of an emperor's son; and Dio says she was executed.
Before AD 54: Locusta is condemned for veneficium, according to Tacitus (12.66) and Cassius Dio (61.34); no date, court or sentence is given.
AD 54: Claudius goes to Sinuessa (Tacitus). Agrippina is said to call on Locusta; Claudius dies, on October 13 according to Cassius Dio. Suetonius reports the belief that he was killed but names Halotus or Agrippina, not Locusta. Nero is hailed as emperor.
AD 55: Britannicus dies. Tacitus places Locusta in the custody of the tribune Pollio Julius, reports Nero's impatience and threats, and reports the public account given by Nero. Suetonius says Nero turned to Locusta.
After AD 55: Suetonius says Nero rewarded her with a full pardon, large country estates and pupils.
Late 1st century AD: Juvenal refers to Lucusta in Satire 1.
AD 68 to 69: Galba, according to Cassius Dio, orders Lucusta, with other associates of Nero, led in chains through the city and executed. Modern reference works give 68 or 69.