#tacitus and/or suetonius wouldve probably mentioned it too

[theromaboo]

There is one part in Agrippina: The Most Extraordinary Woman of the Roman World that I really dislike.

So I get to the part where Britannicus dies. I'm wondering what the book would say about it. I know Emma Southon used Anthony Barrett's biography of Agrippina, and he argued in favour of death by natural causes (he was also the person who said that Britannicus' body darkening after death was a sign that he died of tetanoid epilepsy). So I was interested to see what she would say about it.

And then I get to it, and I'm very very disappointed.

There is, of course, always a question hanging over any imperial murder: was it really murder? Some people have tried to argue that Britannicus really did die of epilepsy because his body turned dark after death, a sign of death by tetanoid epilepsy, and epilepsy was not uncommon in the Julio-Claudian family tree. Those arguments, however, tend to overlook the fact that tetanoid epilepsy is a model for inducing seizures in rats, not an actual form of epilepsy.

What.

WHAT!?

The main problem is in the last sentence. Where it is said that tetanoid epilepsy is "a model for inducing seizures in rats and not an actual form of epilepsy."

That is completely wrong, but I understand where the confusion probably came from. I've done some googling and it appears that there is a tetanus toxin model of epilepsy. So I'm assuming that there was a mix-up here. When you hear tetanoid, you think of tetanus.

Tetanoid epilepsy is a very very outdated term. It was already obsolete at least 20 years before Anthony Barrett used it, so I'm wondering why he used it at all. But, a long time ago, tetanoid epilepsy was considered an "actual form of epilepsy." It's just that nowadays we use different words to describe what used to be described as tetanoid epilepsy.

I don't like how the argument was so quickly dismissed because of a mix-up. Yes, there are some pretty solid counterarguments against Anthony Barrett, but this one is not one of them.

I'm planning to maybe talk to Emma Southon on Twitter (I mean X) about this. She has her username at the back of the book.

Anyway, I just want you guys to know about this because I'd feel sad and blame myself if any of you read this book and got misinformed about Britannicus.