The Great Fire of Rome: The Fall of the Emperor Nero and His City

by Dando-Collins, Stephen

  The emperor then competed in the games’ four-horse chariot race. Falling out of his chariot midrace, he came close to being crushed to death, but escaped without major injury. Despite his failure to finish, the judges still declared Nero the race winner. After he accepted the victor’s laurel crown, Nero presented the Greek judges with a gift of a million sesterces. Flushed with his Olympian victories, Nero moved on. “He competed in every city alike that held any contest,” said Cassius Dio, “always employing ex-consul Cluvius Rufus as his herald.”9 The only places in Achaia where he did not compete, for various reasons, were Athens and Sparta.

  In the meantime, Cestius Gallus, governor of Syria, had, over many months, put together the force with which he intended to put down the Jewish Revolt. At its core was the 12th Fulminata Legion, a unit that was soon to undergo its twenty-year discharge of time-served soldiers and the induction of a new intake. It was far from the ideal legion for the task. After almost two decades of service, the current enlistment had been drained of men through battle casualties and sickness. Just several years before, Tacitus had commented on the legion’s “numerical feebleness.”10

  To the 12th, Gallus added four cohorts from each of several other legions, plus auxiliaries and cavalry. Regional allies, including Herod Agrippa II, answered his call for troops with spearmen, archers, and cavalry, so that Gallus’ force totaled twenty-eight thousand men by the time that it reached Ptolemais, in southern Syria just a little north of Caesarea, late in the fall. After relieving the city of Sepphoris in Galilee, which had held out against the Jewish rebels, and destroying the Jewish city of Joppa, Gallus’ army pushed up into the Judean hills from the coastal plain. It was October and the time of the Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles when the Roman force arrived outside Jerusalem, having lost five hundred men to harrying partisans over the last days of the march.

  Pitching camp on Mount Scopus overlooking Jerusalem, Gallus did nothing for three days, hoping the rebels would surrender. When this did not eventuate, he set fire to the Bezetha region of the city, forcing the Jews to retreat into the old city. For five days, the Roman army attacked the city walls. Then, to the amazement of the defenders, Gallus packed up and marched his army away. Josephus would claim that bribery played a part in the Roman withdrawal. Day after day, tens of thousands of Jewish partisans pursued the withdrawing Romans, attacking them along the entire length of the column.

  Only by discarding his heavy baggage and by leaving 400 volunteers at the hill village of Beth-horon on a suicide mission to delay the Jews was Gallus able to escape with the majority of his men. The Jews pursued the badly mauled Roman column as far west as the town of Antipatris. When the bloodied Roman force arrived back in Caesarea and counted its losses, they found that 5,300 infantry and 380 mounted troops had been lost. The Jewish losses, meanwhile, had been minor. And the rebels still held Jerusalem and most of Judea, Galilee, and Idumaea.

  Nero was wintering in Greece when the staggering news of Gallus’ defeat reached him that December. In addition to the numerical losses, Nero learned that several senior officers including the commander of the 6th Ferrata Legion had been killed during the botched operation. The rebels had also captured the column’s wagon train, inclusive of much war matériel, particularly Roman artillery. Worst of all, in the eyes of all Romans, the sacred golden eagle standard of the 12th Fulminata Legion had been captured by the rebels. For a legion, there was no greater disgrace. Cestius Gallus was also dead. Some said that he had perished of natural causes once he was back in Caesarea; others said that he had died of shame. It was even suggested that he had committed suicide.

  Nero was shaken by this defeat. Calling in Titus Vespasian, who was in the emperor’s large entourage, Nero gave him the task of putting down the Jewish Revolt. Vespasian immediately set off overland for Syria to take command there. At the same time, Vespasian’s son Titus sailed for Egypt with orders to lead legionaries and auxiliaries based in Alexandria up to Judea to join Vespasian’s new army for the counteroffensive.

  Initial news of the revolt at Jerusalem had sponsored similar uprisings among other Jewish communities throughout the Roman world, particularly in Egypt, which a million Jews called home. In Alexandria and at Antioch, capital of Syria and home to forty thousand Jews, Roman troops brutally put down the unrest. Many Jews were killed in street fighting; others were thrown into jail. Nero, made furious by Gallus’ failure and the humiliating Roman defeat in Judea, appears to have issued orders for all Jewish prisoners in Roman custody throughout the empire to be summarily executed. This would account for why the apostles Paul and Peter would be executed early in AD 67.

  Christian tradition puts Peter’s death on February 22. As a noncitizen, he was crucified. At his own request, he was crucified upside down. His slow death on a cross would have taken place on a roadside beyond the city walls. One Christian tradition puts that road in the Vatican Valley, another, on the Janiculum Hill. After Peter’s death, according to one Christian legend, Peter’s body was for a time interred in the tomb of a Roman senator named Marcellus.

  According to Christian tradition, too, Paul was executed several months later. Because of his Roman citizenship, he was decapitated with a sword. The fifty-seven-year-old balding, bearded Paul is said to have been marched from Rome in chains and taken by a squad of Praetorians three miles down the Via Appia to the natural spa of Aqua Salviea. In the Glade of the Tombs, he was forced to his knees before the centurion in charge lopped off his head. In the Roman scheme of things, the deaths of Peter and Paul did not figure at all. No one in the Roman world could imagine that within the span of 250 years, the church that these two Jews helped found would become the official faith of Rome.

  Other disturbing news had reached Nero’s ears from Helius, his deputy at Rome. Annius Vinicianus, Corbulo’s impetuous son-in-law, had been linked to a new plot against Nero at Rome. The implication was that the conspirators intended to put Corbulo on Nero’s throne. The Scribonius brothers, who did everything in public and private life together—they had jointly governed the two Roman provinces of Germany and had jointly put down riots in the port of Puteoli—were also linked to this plot, perhaps as patrons of Vinicianus. Nero’s response to Helius’ accusations was crafty. Early in the new year, he sent cordial invitations to Corbulo and the Scribonius brothers to join him at Corinth in Achaia, where he would be competing in the Isthmian Games come the spring.

  As soon as the sailing season for AD 67 opened in the spring, Corbulo sailed from Syria to Achaia in answer to the emperor’s invitation. Corbulo would have been expecting to lead Nero’s planned Caspian Gates operation. To give the latest Judean offensive every opportunity of success, Nero had authorized Vespasian to draw on units based in Syria and Egypt—units that had been earmarked for the Caspian Gates and Ethiopian expeditions, both of which were now put on hold. Corbulo, unaware that his son-in-law was in trouble at Rome, came to Achaia no doubt expecting to discuss the future of the Caspian Gates operation with Nero.

  On landing at Cenchreae, the port that served Corinth, Corbulo was met by Praetorian troops who advised him to take his own life at once, for the sake of his family, or they would do it for him. Up until this time, Nero had never considered Corbulo a rival to his throne, because of the general’s lowly background and apparently unswerving loyalty. Now, although there was not a shred of evidence against him, Corbulo had been found guilty by association.

  Corbulo, who was said to curse because he had failed to bring bodyguard troops with him to Achaia, was determined to die a soldier’s death. Drawing a sword, he exclaimed, “You are worthy of this!” a phrase usually called to triumphants when they took their Triumph.11 He plunged the sword into his heart.

  When the Scribonius brothers arrived in Greece, they were likewise forced to take their own lives. Nero, meanwhile, was competing in the Isthmian Games at Corinth and taking off the winners’ pine-leaf wreaths for verse, song, and charioteering. Now, too, he entered the contests for heralds and wa
s awarded the prizes for those as well. Since his initial successes at Olympia, he had also taken to acting in Greek tragedies, even taking female roles—no women appeared on the Roman stage, and as was the case even in Shakespeare’s time, men played the roles of female characters. In one play, Nero played the role of a pregnant woman. In another, playing Hercules, he dressed in rags and wore manacles as the part required—a horrified soldier of the German Cohorts bodyguard, seeing his emperor in chains, rushed up to set him free.

  Nero also initiated the Corinth Canal, linking the Aegean and Ionian seas, a project envisioned by Julius Caesar. Nero personally turned the first sod. Prisoners then commenced digging the canal, which would be abandoned on Nero’s death. Work on Nero’s canal would resume in modern times; it was completed in 1893. Once Nero had won his final event at Corinth, he stood in the crowded stadium and delivered a speech in which he announced that the entire province of Achaia would, from that day forward, be free of taxation. This was the province’s reward for accepting him as a performer.

  In the summer of AD 67, Nero moved on to Delphi, to compete in the Pythian Games, which ran over three months. Since the eighth century BC, Delphi had been famous as the seat of the Oracle of Delphi, at the sanctuary of Apollo on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. Seeking a personal prediction, Nero went through the usual ritual entailed in a visit to the oracle, who was a priestess called the Pythia. Up the zigzag Sacred Way the emperor climbed, bringing a black sheep to be sacrificed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo, which was administered by two senior priests, serving in an honorary role accorded leading Greeks of the day. Later this same century, the historian Plutarch would be one of those priests.

  As Nero made his way up the road, he paused at the sanctuary’s treasury to deposit a gift of four hundred thousand sesterces in gold. Every year, the shrine of Delphi attracted countless pilgrims seeking prophesies. All pilgrims were expected to make a donation, and the larger the gift, the more likely they were to be found a place toward the head of the usually long line. The emperor of Rome did not have to join a line.

  Down well-trodden steps went Nero, into a cavern beneath the Temple of Apollo. The role of the Pythia was shared in rotation by three priestesses chosen specially for their gifts. Between spring and autumn each year, the Pythia on duty sat on a three-legged seat above a fissure in the rocks from which rose “the sacred vapor”; modern-day scientists believe this was any one of several naturally occurring mildly hallucinogenic gases. In answer to the applicant’s question, the Pythia would go into a trancelike state and provide a cryptic reply, originally in rhyming verse but in later times in prose, which was written down by an assistant.

  The question that Nero put to the Pythia was a secret, but according to Cassius Dio, the emperor was so dissatisfied with the response, he abolished the oracle, “after slaying some people and throwing them into the fissure from which the sacred vapor rose.”12 There is no record in any other source of either event, and the Oracle of Delphi would continue to issue her prophesies until AD 393, when Rome’s Christian emperor Theodosius I ordered all pagan temples closed across the empire. Dio also claimed that Nero, in his dissatisfaction, had the territory of Cirrha, the port town that served and was controlled by Delphi, taken away and “given to the soldiers”—Nero’s Praetorian escort, apparently.13

  Suetonius’ earlier account disagrees with Dio; according to the former, Nero was pleased by the Oracle’s prediction, which, Suetonius claimed, warned the young emperor to beware of the seventy-third year. Nero, believing this to refer to his own seventy-third year, felt that his problems were still many years away. The Oracle, said Suetonius, was actually referring to Nero’s ultimate successor, Galba, who was seventy-three years old.14 The only problem with that story was the fact that on December 24, AD 67, Galba turned just seventy.

  In addition to footraces and other physical events held at the sanctuary of Apollo’s stadium, the Pythian Games included competitions for singers, poets, and heralds, in the sanctuary’s theater. There were also horse and chariot races, held in a hippodrome down on the Plain of Crissa. Even today, it is possible to sit on the upper terraces of the Theater at Delphi, which is built into the mountainside, and enjoy a commanding view out over the plain where the equestrian events were held. At Delphi, Nero won the victor’s bay laurel wreath, time and again.

  Nero was at last living the artistic life to which he had aspired. Meanwhile, his empire was crumbling around him.

  XXIV

  THE FALL OF NERO

  In the spring of AD 67, new provincial governors appointed by Nero took up their postings. One such appointee was Cluvius Rufus, who up to this point had been introducing Nero’s stage performances in Greece; he became governor of Baetica, or Farther Gaul. Gaius Julius Vindex had also left the imperial party in Greece to become Nero’s governor of the province of Gallia Lugdunensis. Born in Gaul and the descendant of the onetime kings of Aquitania, Vindex was, according to Cassius Dio, ambitious, shrewd, and passionate.1 Vindex, like so many other Roman senators, not only had shuddered at the purges of the past three years, but also had been horrified by the news that in Greece, Nero had recently gone through a “wedding” ceremony with a castrated youth named Sporus, a beautiful boy who resembled the late Poppaea Sabina, with Tigellinus giving away the “bride.”

  By late AD 67, in the Middle East, Vespasian’s army had stormed one Jewish city after another in Galilee; the Jewish general and former rabbi Joseph was one of a handful of prisoners taken in the brutal siege of Jotopata. But Jerusalem was still in rebel hands. In Greece, Nero was competing at various games, as he had been for more than a year. In Gaul, Vindex made a decision. Summoning Gallic leaders to a conference, he made a speech about Nero, whom he disparagingly called Domitius Ahenobarbus, the name Nero bore before becoming emperor.

  Vindex told his countrymen with disgust: “I have often heard him sing, play the herald, and act in tragedies,” (all of which Nero had only done during his current Greek tour, meaning Vindex must have accompanied him on that tour). “Will anyone, then, call such a person Caesar, and imperator, and Augustus? Never!” Vindex saw just one solution. “Rise now against him everywhere. Help yourselves, and help the Romans. Liberate the entire world!”2

  As the Gallic leaders went away to enthuse their own people and raise and equip a Gallic army, Vindex took control of the 1,500-man 18th Cohort of Rome’s City Cohorts, which was stationed at his provincial capital, Lugdunum, modern-day Lyon, guarding the imperial mint. Vindex now turned that mint from producing coins that depicted Nero playing the lyre to coins bearing images of Liberty and the motto “Salvation of Mankind.” At the same time, he wrote to the governors of other Roman provinces, urging them to support him in overthrowing Nero.

  Several governors forwarded these letters to Rome for Nero’s attention; one such governor would have been Cluvius Rufus in Farther Spain. Helius, Nero’s loyal deputy at the Palatium, immediately wrote to the emperor to inform him of the problem and to urge him to return to Rome at once and take charge. But Nero was too absorbed in the business of theatrical competition and was looking forward to the Nemean Games over the winter. He ignored Helius’ urgent requests, instead writing to ask the Senate to declare Vindex an outlaw, which they did, ordering Verginius Rufus to lead the army of Upper Germany against him and putting a price of ten million sesterces on Vindex’s head.

  When Vindex heard of this, he countered, “To the one who brings me the head of Domitius (Nero), I offer my own in exchange.”3

  One governor who received a letter from Vindex was sixty-nine-year-old Lucius Servius Galba, who had for the past eight years been Nero’s propraetor of Hispania Tarraconensis, or Nearer Spain, which was centered on the city of Tarraco, modern Tarragona in eastern Spain. On receiving Vindex’s letter, Galba had written back, offering moral support. Galba also spoke against Nero at a large gathering in his province. His troops hailed him imperator, in the style of old, but he refused to accept the honor. Cont
rolling a single legion based in his province (the 10th Gemina) plus just three cohorts of auxiliaries and two squadrons of cavalry, Galba did not acquiesce to Vindex’s call for military support. Meanwhile, Verginius Rufus, governor of Upper Germany, responding to orders from Nero, ordered the mobilization of his four legions, which were in winter camp, for an advance into Gaul.

  On January 1, when a crowd assembled at the Capitol gates in Rome to swear the usual vow of allegiance to Nero and offer prayers for his health and safety, the priests declared that the keys to the Capitoline complex had been lost, so that the ceremony and the prayers could not go ahead. Helius, Nero’s deputy, concerned by this display of defiance from the priests and worried by news that the Gauls were raising a massive army, gave up writing to Nero. Instead, Helius set off for Greece by warship, ignoring the winter weather, to confront the emperor in person with the threats at home and abroad. Seven days later, Helius arrived at the astonished Nero’s quarters and again put his case for his master’s immediate return to Rome.

  “Yes, you have made yourself quite plain,” Nero irritably responded, according to Suetonius. “I am aware that you want me to go home. You will fare far better, however, if you encourage me to stay until I have proved myself worthy of Nero.”4

  Helius persisted, making it painfully clear to Nero that his throne was in danger if he was not seen to return to the capital and personally take charge. Unhappy though he was, Nero agreed. His staff and the members of the imperial entourage began preparations for a return to Italy by sea aboard warships of the Tyrrhenian Fleet.

  Nero landed on the west coast of Italy in early March AD 68, then entered Neapolis celebrating his Greek theatrical victories like a triumphant general. Word had been sent ahead to demolish a section of the town wall, and now Nero entered the city through the gap, driving a chariot along streets lined with cheering Neapolitans and with a famous lyre-player beside him, and followed by hundreds of senators chanting his praises. This was how Panhellenic Games victors of ancient times had arrived home to their Greek cities.