“Too late!” Nero gasped, looking up at the centurion with bulging eyes. “Is this your duty?” he asked.11 In other words, did the centurion’s duty require him to save his emperor’s life only to permit Nero to be later subjected to an agonizing death in “the ancient style”?
According to Suetonius, thirty-year-old Nero died in the centurion’s arms, this ninth day of June, AD 68. On the centurion’s orders, a Praetorian galloped back to the city from Phaon’s villa with those tidings. But Dio Chrysostom, a Bithynian philosopher based at Rome and writing around the same time as Suetonius, believed that the truth surrounding Nero’s demise never came out.12 Plutarch later wrote that Icelus, a freedman in the employ of Galba, had been incarcerated at the Praetorian barracks by orders of the Senate until that very evening. He was still there, but a free man now, when the Praetorian messenger arrived from Phaon’s villa.
Icelus did not believe the soldier’s story. He immediately jumped on a horse and rode out to the villa to see for himself if Nero truly was there, and truly was dead. The house was cordoned off by Praetorians, but Icelus, announcing that he was the freedman of new emperor Galba, pushed his way inside. He found the centurion and Nero’s last three companions guarding the corpse. “I went myself to the body and saw him lying dead,” Icelus later reported to Galba.13
When Icelus saw the body, the centurion was in a quandary. The officer’s instructions required him, if he found Nero dead, to take the head back to his superiors. But Epaphroditus, a man with considerable presence, had reportedly argued against defiling the body of the late emperor. Consequently, the centurion asked the freedman of the new emperor to adjudicate in the matter. Icelus advised him not to decapitate the last of the Caesars. The head of the dead man would not go on public display for all to see, but would be hurriedly incinerated with the rest of the body on a funeral pyre.
Icelus hastened back to the city. Staying just long enough to make travel preparations, he set off for Spain to inform Galba that Nero was dead and that the older man was now emperor of Rome. Icelus made the journey to Clunia, where Galba had retired, in seven days. This was record time, and it was not until the official Senate announcement of Nero’s death and Galba’s elevation to the throne arrived some days later that Galba would believe Icelus.
At Rome, one senator, Mauriscus, warned the House that “in a short time, they might wish for Nero again.”14 How right he turned out to be. Ahead lay a year of turmoil. Within seven months, Galba would be assassinated at Rome by troops dissatisfied by his refusal to pay the bonuses that Nymphidius had promised them for deserting Nero. Galba’s short-lived successor would be Marcus Otho, Nero’s former best friend, who himself would be dead within another three months after his army was defeated. The leader of the conquering army was Aulus Vitellius, Galba’s appointee as commander of the legions on the lower Rhine. Vitellius subsequently succeeded Otho as emperor; this was the same Vitellius who, as chief judge at the Neronian Games in AD 65, had called Nero back to perform in the Theater of Pompey after he had suffered stage fright. Vitellius, who would even celebrate funeral rites for Nero once he became emperor, would be assassinated in December AD 69, to be replaced by Nero’s toadying general Vespasian, the first of the Flavian emperors.
As for Nero, his body was reportedly cremated, swiftly, privately, and intact, wearing the gold-embroidered robes that he had used in the January 1 ceremonials on the Capitol. His ever-faithful mistress Acte and his childhood nurses Ecloge and Alexandria carried his ashes and bones in a white porphyry casket to the tomb of his father’s Domitius family, on Rome’s Pincian Hill. For decades after, flowers were laid on his grave by admirers, every spring and summer. Statues of him mysteriously appeared on the Rostra, and edicts would be circulated about the city in his name by those who regretted his passing, as if he were still alive.
The legend of Nero redivivus, or Nero returned to life, persisted until the fifth century. This held that Nero had never died, or that he would be resurrected, would gather a vast army in the East, and would return to Rome to destroy his enemies. Dio Chrysostom, who lived between AD 40 and 120 and resided in Rome during the reign of the tyrannical Domitian, said this about Nero: “Even now everyone wishes he were still alive, and the great majority do believe that he still is.”15
Had the body burned at Phaon’s villa actually been that of a Nero look-alike? Had Icelus and Epaphroditus conspired to spin a tale about Nero’s suicide to permit Nero to escape to a life of anonymity and allow Galba to take the throne? Three times over the two decades after Nero’s demise, lyre-playing individuals who looked like Nero would appear in the East and claim to be him. The most famous emerged in Parthia during the reign of Domitian. “Twenty years after [Nero’s death], when I was a young man,” Suetonius wrote, “a mysterious individual came forward claiming to be Nero. And so magical was the sound of his name to the Parthians’ ears that they supported him to the best of their ability, and only handed him over with great reluctance.”16 Once in Roman hands, the pseudo Neros were all executed.
Helius the freedman, who had remained loyal to Nero to the end, was executed by Galba, along with two other of Nero’s loyal freedmen, including Patrobius. Even the sorceress Locusta was put to death. Nero’s general Petronius Turpilianus was among a number of others executed by Galba; his crimes were having been loyal to Nero for many years and commanding respect among the soldiery. Praetorian Prefect Nymphidius, who had engineered the troops’ defection from Nero at Rome, an act that had given Galba the throne, was likewise executed by Galba—for being too powerful. Just as Galba would make numerous questionable appointments, giving powerful, well-paid posts to exiles, former criminals and old men with shameful pasts, he unaccountably protected Tigellinus. But it was only a short reprieve; Tigellinus would be executed during Otho’s reign.
Otho also restored to office many of Nero’s freedmen. One of the latter, Epaphroditus, who allegedly helped Nero end his life, continued to serve the Palatium for decades. He was petitions secretary to Domitian, a post he held for many years until just months before that emperor’s assassination, when the secretary fell victim to Domitian’s paranoia and was executed.
Nero continued to fascinate Romans for generations to come. Pliny the Younger would write, early in the second century, of the death of a friend who “was bringing out a history of the various fates of the people put to death or banished by Nero.” This friend of Pliny, Gaius Fannius, had by the time he died already published three volumes of his Neronian history. “He was all the more anxious to complete the series when he saw how eagerly the first books were read by a large public,” said Pliny.17
This fascination with Nero persists to this day, no doubt in part because of his unconventional character and the many famous figures and historic events that figured in his life story. The interest can also be attributed to the fact that as Suetonius wrote, “with Nero, the line of the Caesars became extinct.”18 Nero had no heirs. While many future emperors would include “Caesar” in their name, Nero was the last of the Caesar dynasty, a situation that many Romans lamented.
And as Josephus was to complain, with no descendants to defend Nero’s reputation, it became open season for any author who cared to conjure up sensational stories about Nero and his reign and thereby profit from their inventions. Rather than execrating Nero, we might pity him. For most of his short life, he was controlled and manipulated by others: his mother Agrippina, Seneca and Burrus, Tigellinus, and Poppaea Sabina. He dreamed of being an artist and driving chariots. In the end, he realized his dreams, and they brought about his downfall, providing his enemies with the ammunition they needed to destroy his reputation and his support.
Was Nero the cruel and crazy ruler that his detractors claimed he was? Certainly, he was no saint. If his biographers are to be believed—and all can be considered hostile witnesses—blame him for his mother’s murder and also for that of his adoptive brother Britannicus. But extenuating circumstances—his mother’s insane ambition
—might be argued in both cases. Meanwhile, the ambitious Poppaea was probably the person behind the execution of Nero’s wife Octavia.
There is no escaping that Nero authorized the executions of men convicted of plotting to kill him. But the governors of various American states today authorize the execution of convicted felons. Does that necessarily make them cruel? If you believe it does, then yes, Nero was also cruel. Did Nero burn followers of Isis following the Great Fire? Some historians believe such a thing never even occurred. If he did burn them, then this was certainly cruel, but no more so than crucifixion, the accepted method of execution for all noncitizens throughout Roman times, yet an execution method that could prolong the victim’s sufferings for days. These were cruel times.
Was he a tyrant? If Nero was such a tyrant, how was it that Nerva, who would be rated one of Rome’s most wise and just emperors, willingly and actively served Nero and led the hunt for those who plotted against him? Far from possessing a track record of tyranny and cruelty, Nero ordained that no man, gladiator or convicted criminal, should die in the arena. And as Suetonius pointed out, Nero was incredibly tolerant of those who lampooned him, while his patience with Thrasea’s years of insulting and royally haughty behavior is almost beyond belief. And when Nero said that he would have spared Torquatus Silanus had the senator not taken his own life, we can believe him. On one occasion, Nero declared that he would not stand in the way of clemency for one of his most bitter critics. In fact, Nero frequently gave the Senate the final say in the fate of his opponents, just as he returned various ancient powers to the House.
Far from being mad, Nero was in many ways a visionary. His plans for massive engineering works were lambasted by the likes of Tacitus and Suetonius as fantastical and impossible, yet the Corinth Canal would be realized and would follow Nero’s design. Nero’s strict building regulations and clever incentives for the restoration of Rome were innovative and the first of their kind in Rome’s history. Tacitus had to agree that through these regulations, Nero created a much more beautiful and utilitarian Rome, yet the historian had to add the ludicrous complaint that some people perceived the city’s new, wider streets as unhealthy.
Nero’s downfall and the besmirching of his name began with the Great Fire. The emperor’s critics and enemies were able to turn that calamity against him, by blaming the fire on him. In the same way, later Christian writers would, falsely, cast Nero as the first Roman emperor to persecute the Christians, in the wake of the fire. He was, after all, an easy target: young, naive, insecure, bisexual, timid, artistic.
Nero was also accused of spending money like a drunkard, yet he reduced a variety of taxes, and the empire was never more prosperous than during his reign, up until the fire. The cost of rebuilding Rome and of constructing his extravagant Golden House did impose a heavy financial burden on the provinces. This certainly contributed to the decline in Nero’s popularity in Gaul and exacerbated Jewish unrest in Jerusalem caused by the greed and mismanagement of successive procurators of Judea. No doubt, this rebellion in the East and the struggle that Roman forces initially had in putting it down convinced Vindex that his Gallic revolt could succeed.
Yet, just as Nero’s reign was initially made at Rome, it was at Rome that it was undone. The patricians of Rome despised young Nero for his artistic aspirations, just as they despised the provincials and freedmen whom Nero employed in powerful positions. Men like Thrasea actively snubbed their noses at Nero while working against him behind the scenes. As the Piso Plot demonstrated, there were enough malcontents among the upper class and military officers to engineer a concerted attempt to deliver Julius Caesar’s fate to the fifth emperor of Rome. And even though that plot failed, it planted a seed in the minds of other ambitious men.
Significantly, the Piso Plot emerged in the wake of the Great Fire. Without the fire, there probably would never have been the courage or the commitment for a Piso Plot. The persistent rumors that swept the city after the fire, the concerted propaganda campaign directed against Nero, gave the Piso plotters the gumption to proceed. The rumor regarding the reading of the Sibylline Books can realistically be traced to Thrasea. And perhaps he inspired some of the other rumors. But it is unlikely that he was the lone rumormonger. There would have been others, men who used the fire to launch bids for the throne.
Why did Galba spare Tigellinus? Could it be that Tigellinus worked behind the scenes on Galba’s behalf following the fire, spreading rumors against Nero? And was it the knowledge of Tigellinus’ support that gave Galba the courage to launch his bid for the throne from faraway Spain? Certainly, Galba’s fearful retreat to Clunia came after Tigellinus lost his power at Rome.
Still another man in authority could have been working against Nero behind the scenes from the time of the Great Fire. There can be no denying that Praetorian Prefect Nymphidius made Nero’s downfall possible, and inevitable, by unseating Tigellinus and bribing the Praetorian and German Cohorts to desert the emperor. If Nymphidius was indeed prefect of the Cohortes Vigiles the night the Great Fire began, as is believed, he may well have been the “one who gives us authority,” the man who had sent underlings around the already-burning city to spread the fire. And he may well have been the one to ignite the second fire in the property of Tigellinus, the man he later forced into retirement to gain sole power at the head of the Praetorians.
There had previously been a Praetorian prefect who eyed the throne for himself—Sejanus, Tiberius’ slimy underling. To give himself a connection with the imperial family and improve his claim to the throne, Sejanus had married the sister of Claudius and Germanicus. Nymphidius had a similar but even stronger connection, a blood connection, with the Caesars, claiming to be a son of Claudius. It is not unrealistic to imagine opportunistic Nymphidius playing puppet master to a four-year campaign to unseat Nero—a campaign that began the moment the Great Fire spluttered into life. And he succeeded, overthrowing Nero and putting Galba on the throne, no doubt with plans to remove Galba once the prefect felt that he himself could command the loyalty of the army. But his scheme backfired—crusty, suspicious Galba recognized Nymphidius’ ambition and saw through his plan, terminating plot and plotter in one fell swoop.
Had there been no Great Fire, Nero would have embarked on his Ethiopian and Caspian Gates operations and may well have become the new Alexander the Great. Hailed by his army, his people, and the writers of history, he might have lived and reigned for another fifty or sixty years, fathering sons with a new wife and propagating the Julian line.
With Nero’s demise came the end of imperial Rome’s founding dynasty. After Nero, there would sometimes be blood links between emperors, but never would there be a dynasty, or an era, like that of the Caesars. The end of Nero, and the end of his family’s dynasty, was one of history’s great turning points. Nero’s end began with the flames of July 19, AD 64. There can be no doubting that Roman history, and world history, would have been very different had it not been for the Great Fire of Rome.
Notes
Introduction
1 Cassius Dio, Roman History 62.16.
2 Ibid. 62.18.
3 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars 6.38.
4 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.8.3.
5 Tacitus, Annals 13.20.
6 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.8.3.
7 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars 6.16.
8 New Encyclopaedia Britannica, 18th ed. (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1987), s.v. “Nero.”
9 Dio, Roman History 62.14.
10 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars 12.10.
11 Tacitus, Annals 15.44.
12 2 Tim. 4:21.
13 Acts 28:15.
14 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars 3.36.
15 Philo, In Flaccum 1.
16 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars 5.25.
17 Ibid. 12.1.
Chapter I: The January Oath
1 Based on Vegetius, “The Organization of the Legion,” in The Military Institutions of the Romans 2.
&n
bsp; 2 Tacitus, Annals 15.46.
3 Ibid. 13.3.
4 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars 6.52.
5 Ibid. 6.20.
6 Tacitus, Annals 15.33.
7 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars 6.53.
8 Tacitus, Annals 15.33.
Chapter II: The Rival Prefects
1 Tacitus, Annals 14.51.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid. 14.57.
5 Ibid. 13.21.
6 Ibid. 14.22.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid. 14.57.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid. 14.59.
12 Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 113.
13 Ibid. 104.
14 Horace, Odes 3.29.5-12.
Chapter III: The Poets
1 Martial.
2 Tacitus, Annals 15.49.
3 Pliny the Younger, Letters 3.21.
4 Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 112.
Chapter IV: The Former Chief Secretary
1 Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 113.
2 Tacitus, Annals 14.65.
3 Ibid. 14.53.
4 Seneca, Letters to Lucilius 123.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
Chapter V: The Flame
1 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars 6.28.
2 Tacitus, Agricola 6.
3 Ibid.
4 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars 10.3.
5 Pliny the Younger, Letters 3.5.
6 Ibid.
Chapter VI: The Water Commissioner
1 Martial, Epigrams 9.17.5-6.
2 Frontinus, Aqueducts 2.87.
3 Ibid.
Chapter VII: The Singing Emperor
The Great Fire of Rome: The Fall of the Emperor Nero and His City Page 26