From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68

by H. H. Scullard

  8. THE ADMINISTRATION OF SENECA AND BURRUS

  During these years the general administration was good. Though he held a consulship in 55, 57 and 58, Nero declined a perpetual consulship in 58 and did not obtrude himself. When personal action by him is recorded (e.g. part of a letter that he wrote to Rhodes in 55 survives), it cannot be certain how far he was merely following the advice of Seneca, who with Burrus was the power behind the throne after Agrippina’s decline. Together these two men were responsible for the administration, but although Seneca may have had the interests of the Senate at heart he also had to give the appearance that all was being done by Nero’s beneficence. Thus while outwardly the relations between Princeps and Senate might seem cordial, in fact the emperor’s autocracy was no less than it had been in the past, since upon it in the last resort the power of Seneca and Burrus rested. They aimed, however, at promoting the wellbeing of the Empire, and not least its economic prosperity. Seneca himself had wide financial interests.

  Financial administration was improved, and the emperor’s influence over it was increased, when in 56 two imperial prefects (ex-praetors) replaced quaestors at the Aerarium, to which in the next year Nero transferred forty million sesterces. Measures were taken to make the prosecution of extortionate governors easier, and to preserve the agrarian wellbeing in Cyrene. The food-supply of Rome was safeguarded by the appointment of an efficient Praefectus Annonae, Faenius Rufus, and by the completion of Claudius’ harbour works at Ostia, which Nero advertised on his coinage.19a He distributed congiaria of 400 sesterces per head to the people of Rome on two occasions. To meet the needs of the army and as a measure to check the increasing depopulation of Italy, several colonies of veterans were established in Italy, e.g. at Capua and Nuceria (57), Puteoli, Tarentum and Antium in 60 (the last, Nero’s birthplace, received a colony of Praetorians), and Pompeii after the earthquake of 63. Finally, there was the famous scheme for free trade, sponsored if not originated by Nero himself in 58, that all indirect taxes should be abolished in the expectation that the consequent increase in trade would improve the amount derived from the direct taxes. The suggestion was dropped in face of the practical difficulties involved, but it at least showed interest in promoting the economic life of the Empire.

  9. NERO THE ARTIST20

  Vicious and vain, cruel and lustful, Nero nevertheless had genuine artistic leanings. He wrote poetry, including a poem on ‘The Sack of Troy’: the few surviving fragments do not suggest total lack of merit. He took great trouble to improve his somewhat husky voice (‘vox exigua et fusca’), by lying with heavy lead sheets on his chest in order to strengthen his diaphragm, and by dieting and purging. He studied the playing of the harp with great determination. That he should appear in private performances as singer, artist, actor or poet was harmless enough, as also was his passion for horsemanship. But unfortunately he gained an exaggerated idea of his abilities and craved wider audiences, and here he met opposition from the aristocracy; for an emperor to perform in public shocked Roman sentiment. Further, he had a genuine interest in Greek art, and wanted to introduce Greek Games into Rome, including athletic contests, chariot driving, and competitions in poetry, music and oratory. It may be that one of the causes of his quarrel with his mother was her opposition to the development of these interests. Certain it is that after her death he gave full rein to them.

  In 57 he had forbidden gladiatorial combats to be fought to the death, presumably not from humaneness but because such games were unHellenic. In 59 he held Ludi Iuvenales, gymnastic and artistic competitions, in his own gardens, at which a special body of young aristocrats, the Augustiani, took part: citizens had taken part in the games of Greece, and Nero intended senators and knights to follow this example. In 60 he established quinquennial Neronia, based on the Olympic games. He himself appeared as singer, harpist and charioteer: one of the functions of the Augustiani was to act as his claque.21 In 61 he built a gymnasium and Baths (the Thermae Neronianae). In 64 he appeared on the stage at Greek Naples. When he presided at these games, men might wonder whether he did not resemble a Hellenistic king rather than a Roman emperor.

  Having thrown off all restraint in this field, Nero was encouraged to indulge his less reputable desires and rid himself of any who stood in his way: in 62 treason trials started again. When Burrus died, possibly a natural death, Nero appointed two Praetorian Prefects, Faenius Rufus and a vicious Sicilian Ofonius Tigellinus who had managed to become Prefect of the Vigiles.21a Without Burrus and unable any longer to rely on the Praetorian Guard, Seneca was powerless and was forced into retirement. While Tigellinus pandered to Nero’s vices, Poppaea persuaded him to divorce Octavia and marry her. Octavia was banished, but a false rumour that she was going to be re-instated led to public demonstrations in her favour. Nero acted promptly: he accused her of adultery with Anicetus and treason. She was put to death and Anicetus, an awkward accomplice of Nero in the murder of Agrippina, was neatly banished. Nor did Nero spare the aristocracy: he forced the deaths of a grandson of Tiberius, Rubellius Plautus, and of a son-in-law of Claudius, Cornelius Sulla. The greater freedom that the Senate had enjoyed thanks to Seneca in the early part of the reign was now lost, and Nero was being corrupted by unbridled power. To the hatred of the Senate was next added that of the people of Rome.

  10. THE GATHERING STORM

  On the night of 18 July 64, when the sky was bright with a full moon, a fire broke out in Rome which raged for over a week; it destroyed at least ten of the fourteen Augustan regions, three of them being totally gutted. Nero, who was at Antium when the disaster started, hurried back to Rome, helped to direct the firefighting and undertook energetic measures to relieve the homeless. He then used the opportunity to benefit both Rome and himself. The re-building of the city was planned on more scientific lines compared with its earlier haphazard growth, with a rectangular street system and blocks of skyscrapers (insulae). For himself Nero started to build on the ground between the Esquiline and Caelian hills (where later the Colosseum was built) his vast Golden Palace (Domus Aurea) with its parks, lakes, colonnades and a colossal 120-foot-high statue of Nero himself, together with statues and works of art for which his agents ransacked Greece. Here he could indulge his artistic sense and his mania for the grandiose, while wits might declare that his expropriations not only engulfed the city but would soon embrace Veii, ten miles distant.22

  In their loss and misery the city populace turned against Nero and accused him of having started the fire, while rumour added that he had watched the burning city from the Tower of Maecenas and had sung as an aria over it his own ‘Sack of Troy’. Neither charge can be taken seriously: if he had wished to destroy Rome he would hardly have chosen a bright moonlit summer night when the movement of his fire-raisers would have been hard to hide. But he was suspected and in order to divert suspicion from himself he sought a scapegoat. He might have turned to the Jews, who were always unpopular with the mob, but his wife Poppaea was interested in Judaism and her interest may have saved them.23 Instead there was the new sect of the Christians that was now growing up in Rome, about which little was known except that it was popularly credited with ‘humani generis odium’. It is one of the anomalies of history that a sect, which on the human plane, apart from its theological claims, was preaching the brotherhood of man, should have been so misunderstood, but the secrecy of the meetings helped to give rise to such ideas that the Christians practised cannibalism, an idea based probably on a misunderstanding of the Lord’s Supper. Here were suitable victims, and Nero took savage action. In so far as Christians were charged with incendiarism the charge must normally have broken down (and it is only Tacitus that connects the persecution with the fire), and they will have been persecuted as Christians.24 There is little evidence for any persecution outside Rome, but here their punishment was terrible: some were thrown to the beasts in the amphitheatre, and others were smeared with pitch and used by Nero as living torches to light the games he held by night in the imperial gardens
and Vatican circus; the victims included, according to tradition, Saints Peter and Paul.25 This attempt to divert hostility from himself, however, recoiled on Nero’s own head, because the ruthlessness of the punishment excited pity for the victims, who were regarded as sacrificed to one man’s cruelty rather than to the national interest.

  The rebuilding of Rome required money, and so did Nero’s luxurious life, not to mention a grandiose scheme to link Ostia with Lake Avernus by canal in order to improve access to Rome for sea-borne goods. He therefore imposed forced contributions on Italy and the provinces and seized what he could, not stopping short of putting to death six landowners in Africa who owned half the estates there, in order to appropriate their land. He also tried to ease the position by debasing the coinage. He added an alloy to the silver and reduced the metal content of both gold and silver by a tenth or less, and thus brought them into a better ratio with one another and with the fine new series of aes coinage that he proceeded to strike: he also opened a subsidiary mint at Lugdunum. This depreciation was not a good precedent and it certainly did not increase Nero’s popularity, but it was less serious than the steady drain of precious metals to the East in payment for luxury goods.

  The growing hatred of the Senate for Nero was aggravated by the increasing number of freedmen, Greeks and Orientals that he employed in high office (e.g. Balbillus, the Prefect of Egypt, 55–59, who is probably the Alexandrine astrologer mentioned on p. 360, or Felix the procurator of Judaea). In 65 it burst into flame in a conspiracy that had been smouldering since 62 and involved at least five eminent senators and as many knights: it was supported by Faenius Rufus, one of the Praetorian Prefects. All the conspirators were united in their intent to kill Nero, but the next step was less clear. The majority probably wished to enthrone the noble C. Calpurnius Piso (after whom the plot is generally named), but others may have thought of Seneca, while a few may even have played with Republican ideas. The plot, however, was betrayed and Nero took savage revenge: trials intra cubiculum principis were revived, and his senatorial victims included Piso, Seneca and his nephew the poet Lucan. In the first flush some nineteen persons including Faenius were killed and thirteen exiled.

  Frightened by the narrowness of his escape Nero became a ruthless tyrant, employing more spies and the surviving Praetorian Prefect, Tigellinus, to hunt down all suspects. His victims included the son of Ostorius Scapula, the former governor of Britain, and C. Petronius, Nero’s elegantiae arbiter, who when dying smashed his precious vases which he knew Nero wanted. Another group of people to taste Nero’s wrath were some Stoic philosophers, headed by Thrasea Paetus, an ex-consul who had shown considerable independence of action. From 63 he had absented himself from the Senate as a protest against injustice and flattery, and he had been angry when the deification of Poppaea was voted (Nero had killed her by a kick in 65, and then married Statilia Messalina in 66); he had also failed to applaud Nero’s ‘divine voice’. The Senate meekly condemned him for setting a bad example, since there was no evidence that he had shared in the conspiracy. His son-in-law Helvidius Priscus was banished and another leading Stoic, Barea Soranus, was executed. These Stoics, Republicans in spirit who used to celebrate the birthdays of Brutus and Cassius, objected to tyranny, if not to monarchy, and they showed a bold and obstinate opposition to Nero’s rule, without resorting to actual treason or conspiracy. Another plot was detected in 66 at Beneventum, led by Annius Vinicianus who perhaps hoped to replace Nero with his own father-in-law Corbulo. This was crushed, but Nero’s position would be vitally endangered if discontent spread to the armies, as might well happen since he had not shared any of their campaigns or troubled to visit their camps. Disloyalty among the army commanders, suspected or real, soon revealed itself. When he had gone to Greece in 66–7 Nero summoned Corbulo and the commanders of Upper and Lower Germany, Scribonius Rufus and Scribonius Proculus, to join him: on arrival they received his order to kill themselves, and obeyed.

  In Rome Nero’s autocracy and megalomania increased. He identified himself with various gods (Hercules, Apollo or Helios) and coins depicted him wearing a radiate crown. The month of April was renamed Neroneus and Rome itself might even be called Neropolis. A climax of glory was reached in a magnificent ceremony in 66 when Tiridates came to Rome to be crowned king of Armenia by Nero and to worship him as Mithras. Then Nero the philhellene decided that the Greeks were really the only people who deserved to hear his art: he would go to Greece and compete in the national festivals. This he did with such success that he returned with 1808 first prizes; at Olympia he had fallen out of his ten-horse-team chariot, but was put back and received the crown just the same. It is difficult to reconcile this clowning and levity with his earnest belief in his art. He spent nearly a year in Greece, where he took up Gaius’ plan to cut a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth: at a solemn ceremony he cut the first sod with a golden trowel. An even more spectacular occasion was his special convocation of the Isthmian Games, at which in 196 B.C. Flamininus had proclaimed the freedom of Greece; now Nero proclaimed a second liberation. This in practice meant immunity from taxation and the kind of freedom from the governor of Macedonia that free federate cities enjoyed.26 The Senate was given Sardinia as compensation for this loss of revenue. Nero’s action evoked great enthusiasm and his grand tour was a fine success, but in a more profound sense than in the rumour of 64, he was fiddling while Rome was burning: amid his artistic triumphs and joys he failed to heed the fact the Judaea was in revolt and, more serious still, that the whole basis of his power in the west was threatened. He must return to Rome without delay.

  11. THE PROVINCES AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

  Throughout a large part of the Empire during most of Nero’s reign life was normal and prosperous. He himself, unlike his predecessor, appears to have shown little personal interest in the provinces apart from Greece. The Alpes Cottiae were turned into a small procuratorial province c. 58, Latin rights were given to the inhabitants of the Alpes Maritimae, and Pontus was annexed c. 64. Nero is said to have had ambitious schemes for campaigns in the Caucasus area and in Africa (p. 266 f.), but they did not mature. In three places, however, danger and even disaster threatened: in Britain, in Armenia and in Judaea.

  While the new province of south-east Britain continued to develop peacefully, its frontiers were still threatened by the tribes beyond. The Silures had to be checked by Ostorius and by his successor A. Didius (52–7); the latter also had to intervene in Brigantia in order to re-instate Rome’s friend Queen Cartimandua who had been deposed by her consort Venutius. The next advance was made when in 59 Suetonius Paulinus, the conqueror of Mauretania, was sent out as governor. He decided to strike at Mona (the island of Anglesey), which formed a supply base and refuge for Rome’s enemies in Britain. It was a centre of the Druids, who since Claudius’ proscription of their cult must have been Rome’s bitter foes. The discovery of the great hoard of objects at Llyn Cerrig Bach, which were thrown into a lake at this time either by the Druids to save them or to appease their gods or by the avenging Romans, demonstrates, through the variety and source of these objects, from how wide an area in Britain the Druids could claim offerings or seize booty. This dramatic illustration of the power of the Druid community helps to explain the purpose of Paulinus.27 In 61, though his troops at first wavered in face of the defenders backed by their priests and supposed supernatural powers, he forced the Menai Strait. Then while he was busy felling the sacred groves and settling the island, news came of the revolt of Boudicca in the south.

  In East Anglia the Iceni were suffering from the exactions of Roman tax-collectors, such as the procurator Catus Decianus, and from Roman moneylenders who included the financier Seneca. In 60/61 their king Prasutagus died, leaving half his wealth to Nero and half to his two daughters. He had no son, and Roman experience with Cartimandua may have suggested that it might be wiser not to recognize his widow Boudicca (Boadicea), but to absorb the area into the Roman province. When Roman officials began to seize for the em
peror land which Claudius had granted to tribal nobles and when finally Boudicca was scourged and her daughters were violated, the whole tribe rose in revolt. The Iceni were joined by the neighbouring Trinovantes who were smarting from both the confiscation of some of their land for the Roman colonists settled at Camulodunum and from the cost of the upkeep of Claudius’ temple and cult, which was a symbol of their subjection, the hated ‘arx aeternae dominationis’.

  The first move was against Camulodunum: it was unwalled, and the nearest Roman legions were over a hundred miles away. In two days it was overwhelmed and all Roman survivors, men, women and children were butchered. The Ninth Legion, hastening to the rescue from Lindum, was defeated; only its commander Petilius Cerialis and the cavalry escaped. Meantime Suetonius Paulinus decided to hasten to London ahead of his main troops. But when neither his own legions nor the Second Legion which he had summoned from the south-west arrived, he was forced to abandon both London and Verulamium to Boudicca’s fury: 70,000 people are said to have perished in the sack of the three towns. Withdrawing along Watling Street, Suetonius finally decided to fight although he found that the commander of the Second had disobeyed orders and was not coming. Although heavily outnumbered, he fought on ground of his own choosing, perhaps not far from Lichfield; Boudicca and her forces were utterly routed thanks to superior Roman discipline; she took poison. Suetonius then began to take savage reprisals, but the new procurator, Iulius Classicianus, who could report direct to the emperor, urged that Suetonius should be checked and a more lenient policy be adopted.28 After a commission had reported, Nero decided to send out a new governor, C. Petronius Turpillianus who was more conciliatory, and Britain settled down to a period of peace so that in 67 Nero was able to withdraw one of the legions, the Fourteenth, for service in the East.