Ten Caesars

by Barry Strauss

  “the Best Mother” (optima mater): Tacitus, Annals, 13.2; Suetonius, Nero, 9.

  On coins, she was depicted facing Nero, e.g. RIC I (2nd ed.) Nero, 1, http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.1(2).ner.1.

  she could give her son the empire: Tacitus, Annals, 12.64.

  “pumpkinification”: The joke sounds better in Greek where deification is apotheosis and pumpkinification is apocolocyntosis, but even in Greek the meaning is unclear.

  mushrooms are the food of the gods: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 60.35.

  That the two actually committed incest, as rumor had it: Tacitus, Annals, 14.2; Suetonius, Nero, 28.2; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 61.11.3–4.

  poem about Poppaea’s amber hair: Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 37.12.

  bathed daily: Ibid., 28.182–183, 11; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 62.28.1.

  line of cosmetics: Juvenal, Satires, 6.462.

  So the story goes: Tacitus, Annals, 14.3–7; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 62.12–13, Suetonius, Nero, 34.2–3; compare Anthony Barrett, Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 187–88.

  told the men to strike there: Tacitus, Annals, 14.8; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 62.13.5.

  this day had given him rule of the empire: Tacitus, Annals, 14.7.

  “we look on accomplices”: Ibid., 14.62.

  The choice might indicate, as the sources claim: See Edward Champlin, Nero (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003), 96–103.

  Copies of his poetry: Suetonius, Nero, 52.

  As for singing, the sources differ: See Champlin, Nero, 283n11.

  Civilis Princeps: On the concept of the civilis princeps, see Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “Civilis Princeps: Between Citizen and King,” Journal of Roman Studies 72 (1982): 32–48.

  only the goodness of the ruler protected liberty: Seneca, On Clemency, 1.1.

  “Why, Nero, did you fear a man with such a big nose?” Tacitus, Annals, 14.57, 59; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 62.14.1.

  Her wedding day had been her funeral: Tacitus, Annals, 14.63.3.

  It is said that he kicked her: Tacitus, Annals, 16.6; Suetonius, Nero, 35.3; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 62.28.1.

  she had prayed to die young: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 62.28.1.

  a vast quantity of Arabian incense: Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 12.83.

  stuffed with spices and embalmed: Tacitus, Annals, 16.6.

  “No soldier was more loyal”: Ibid., 15.67, which claims to be a verbatim account. Translation modified from Tacitus, Complete Works of Tacitus. Alfred John Church, William Jackson Brodribb, Sara Bryant, edited for Perseus (New York: Random House, rprnt., 1942), www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078%3Abook%3D15%3Achapter%3D67.

  silence, not words: Musonius Rufus, frag. 49, Cora Elizabeth Lutz, Rufonius Musus: “The Roman Socrates” (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1947), 143.

  “You deserved it!”: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 63.17.5–6.

  he accused an unpopular and relatively new religious sect: Christians: Recently there has been a scholarly debate on the historicity of Nero’s persecution of Christians. Brent Shaw makes a strong case against it but, in my judgment, Christopher Jones argues convincingly for the historicity of the persecution. See Brent Shaw, “The Myth of the Neronian Persecution,” Journal of Roman Studies 105 (2015): 73–100; Christopher P. Jones, “The Historicity of the Neronian Persecution: A Response to Brent Shaw,” New Testament Studies 63 (2017): 146–52.

  “new and pernicious superstition”: Suetonius, Nero, 16.2.

  “hated for their disgraceful acts”: Tacitus, Annals, 15.44.

  “hatred of the human race”: Ibid.

  sympathy for the victims: Ibid.

  inanimate, porous looks: Joseph Brodsky, “Ode to Concrete,” So Forth: Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996), 116.

  now at last he could live like a human being: Suetonius, Nero, 31.

  Nero treated the whole city as if it were his house: Tacitus, Annals, 15.37.1.

  “What an artist perishes in me!”: Suetonius, Nero, 49; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 63.29.2; compare Champlin, Nero, 49–51.

  CHAPTER 4: VESPASIAN, THE COMMONER

  just a flesh wound: Josephus, Jewish War, 3.236.

  equal of the great generals of old: Tacitus, Histories, 2.5.

  Ordering his men to link shields in a protective formation: Josephus, Jewish War, 4.33.

  “the secret of empire was now divulged”: Tacitus, Histories, 1.4.

  he would rather that the officer smelled of garlic: Suetonius, Vespasian, 8.3.

  “the navel of Italy”: Varro in Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 3.10.

  his brother’s anteambulo: Suetonius, Vespasian, 2.2.

  to cover Vespasian’s toga with mud: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 59.12.3.

  Seated Agrippina: Naples Archaeological Museum Inv. No. 6029.

  If later tradition is accurate: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 65.14.1–4.

  “fate came to know Vespasian”: Tacitus, Agricola, 13.3.

  the pride of the family: Tacitus, Histories, 3.75.

  “kingdom of arrogance”: Jewish liturgy, weekly Amidah prayer, twelfth benediction.

  “By common consent, he would have been a capable ruler”: Tacitus, Histories, 1.49.

  In Roman eyes, he lacked authority: Ibid., 4.11; Suetonius, Vespasian, 7.2.

  Vespasian’s soldiers came up with the idea of naming him emperor: Josephus, Jewish War, 4.603.

  gay man: Strictly speaking “gay” and “homosexual” are unhistorical, since the ancients did not think about sex in terms of modern categories. Yet they do evoke for the modern reader that Mucianus preferred same-sex relationships.

  “his private life had a bad reputation”: Tacitus, Histories, 1.10.

  “notorious unchastity,” grumbling, “I at least am a man”: Suetonius, Vespasian, 13.1.

  Mucianus himself made these points: Tacitus, Histories, 2.76–77.

  he added to his reputation for manliness: Ibid., 3.13.

  exercising enormous power behind the scenes: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 65.8.

  “a man who would find it easier to transfer the imperial power to another”: Tacitus, Histories, 1.10.

  “the darling and delight of the human race”: Suetonius, Titus, 1.

  “Titus was qualified for attracting even a man of Mucianus’s habits”: Tacitus, Histories, 2.5.

  No need to bother becoming emperor, said Mucianus: Ibid., 2.77.

  Romanized Jews: Like “gay,” “Romanized” is another problematic term for ancient history but it will have to do; it evokes the notion of assimilation to the conquerors’ ways.

  “an evil man”: Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56B.

  she was, says Tacitus, in the prime of her beauty: Tacitus, Histories, 2.2, 81.

  he supposedly healed two members of the common people: Ibid., 4.81; Suetonius, Vespasian, 7.2; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 66.8.2, who says the second man had a withered hand.

  “He was brave in battle, ready of speech”: Trans. Tacitus, Complete Works of Tacitus. Alfred John Church, William Jackson Brodribb, Sara Bryant, edited for Perseus (New York: Random House, Inc. 1873. reprinted 1942), www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0080%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D86.

  “more like the emperor’s colleague than his agent,” Tacitus, Histories, 2.77.

  For the first time, Caesar was used to designate an heir: Tacitus, Histories, 4.39; see Angela Pabst, Divisio regni: der Zerfall des Imperium Romanum in der Sicht der Zeitgenossen (Bonn, Ger.: Dr. Rudolf Habelt GMBH, 1986), 46–48, 68.

  He died around the year 75. Mucianus was alive in 74 (Tacitus, Dialogus, 37.2) and was dead by 77 (Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 32.62).

  most Roman emperors enjoyed only short tenures in office: I owe this insight to Walter Scheidel, who is working on a book on this subject.

  as if, as one wit put it,
he suffered from constipation: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 66.17.1; Suetonius, Vespasian, 20; compare Martial, Epigrams, 3.89, 11.52–56.

  Lucius Mestrius Florus: Suetonius, Vespasian, 22.1; Suetonius, Vespasian, ed. Brian W. Jones, with intro., commentary, and biblio. (London: Bristol Classical Press/Duckworth, 2000), ad loc., 8.

  REDEMPTION OF ZION: Ran Shapira, “Hoard of Bronze Coins from Jewish Revolt Found Near Jerusalem,” Haaretz, August 17, 2014, www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.610916.

  The coins show Judea as a mourning woman seated beneath a palm tree: e.g. RIC II, Part 1 (2nd ed.) Vespasian 3, http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2_1(2).ves.3.

  Now a tribunal had been erected before the Portico of Octavia: Josephus, Jewish War, in The Works of Flavius Josephus, trans. William Whiston (Auburn and Buffalo: John E. Beardsley, 1895), 126–29, www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0148%3Abook%3D7%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D5%3Awhiston%20section%3D4.

  The emperor carried out a load of soil from the site on his head: Suetonius, Vespasian, 8.5; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 66.10.2.

  it was originally painted a rich yellow: Elisabetta Polvoledo, “Technology Identifies Lost Color at Roman Forum,” New York Times, June 24, 2012, www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/arts/design/menorah-on-arch-of-titus-in-roman-forum-was-rich-yellow.html, and www.yu.edu/cis/activities/arch-of-titus.

  Archaeologists recently discovered parts of this second arch: Ariel David, “Second Monumental Arch of Titus Celebrating Victory over Jews Found in Rome,” Haaretz March 21, 2017, www.haaretz.com/archaeology/1.778103.

  “the general’s share of the booty”: G. Alföldy, ed., Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI. Inscriptiones Urbis Romae Latinae VIII. Fasc. 2. (Berlin: 1976), no. 40454a. See G. Alföldy, “Ein Bauinschrift aus dem Colosseum,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigrafik 109 (1995): 195–226.

  rising an estimated 115 feet: Herbert W. Benario, A Commentary on the Vita Hadriani in the Historia Augusta (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), 118.

  “While the Colosseum stands”: Beda Venerabilis and Jacques-Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina 94: 453.

  Vespasian did not like gladiatorial shows: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 65.15.2; Barbara Levick, Vespasian, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2017), 202.

  “No man can be an orator unless he is a good man”: Quintilian, The Institutions of Oratory, trans. Butler, 12.1.3, 10.7.15.

  the purpose of history is to tell a good story: Ibid., 10.1.31–34; historia . . . scribitur ad narrandum, non ad probandum, 10.1.31.

  “Either my son will succeed me or no one at all will”: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 66.12.1.

  “prudence rather than avarice”: Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, 9.9.

  “the sinews of sovereignty”: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 66.2.5.

  money has no smell: Suetonius, Vespasian, 23.3; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 66.14.5.

  “the good fortune and good discipline of eight hundred years”: Tacitus, Histories, 4.74.3.

  Vespasian replied that, in the future, they should go barefoot: Suetonius, Vespasian, 8.3.

  Caenis is said to have sold access and offices: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 65.14.3–4.

  She had a villa and extensive grounds in the suburbs: The estate was located on the via Nomentana.

  Caenis’s funerary monument: Florence, Museo Storico della Caccia e del Territorio, Palazzo Bardini, inv. A231. See Mauro Cristofani, “L’ara funeraria di Antonia Caenis concubina di Vespasiano,” Prospettiva 13 (April 1978): 2–7.

  “Antonia Caenis, Freedwoman of the Augusta, the best of patrons”: Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI 12037.

  People said that she expected to marry him: Suetonius, Titus, 7.1.

  the great Quintilian as her lawyer: Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, 4.1.19, with Michael R. Young-Widmaieir, “Quintilian’s Legal Representation of Julia Berenice,” Historia 51.1 (2002): 124–29.

  To some, she was another Cleopatra: Suetonius, Titus, 7.1; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 65.15.3–4.

  daily regimen: See Suetonius, Vespasian, 21–22.

  “Methinks I’m becoming a god”: Ibid., 23.4; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 66.17.2.

  “An emperor should die on his feet”: Suetonius, Vespasian, 24–25; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 66.17.2; Pseudo-Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus, 9.18.

  “Give me a hundred thousand”: Suetonius, Vespasian, 19.2.

  Vespasian alone changed for the better: Tacitus, Histories, 1.50.

  1.1 million Jews died in the siege of Jerusalem, and 97,000 Jews were taken prisoner: Josephus, Jewish War, 6.240.

  “against his will and hers”: invitus invitam, Suetonius, Titus, 7.2; Compare Cassius Dio, Roman History, 66.18.1; Pseudo-Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus, 10.7.

  October 79: “Pompeii: Vesuvius Eruption May Have Been Later Than Thought,” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45874858.

  CHAPTER 5: TRAJAN, THE BEST PRINCE

  an earthquake struck Antioch: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 68.24–25.

  an estimated magnitude of a ferocious 7.3 or 7.5: Mustapha Meghraoui et al., “Evidence for 830 Years of Seismic Quiescence from Palaeoseismology, Archaeoseismology and Historical Seismicity Along the Dead Sea Fault in Syria,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 210 (2003): 35–52.

  the Best Prince: Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus, 88.4.

  “luckier than Augustus, better than Trajan”: Eutropius, Abridgment of Roman History, 8.2, 8.5; Julian Bennett, Trajan, Optimus Princeps: A Life and Times (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 107.

  “Our Master and Our God orders that this be done”: Suetonius, Domitian, 13.2.

  catching flies and stabbing them with a stylus: Ibid., 3.

  Tall and handsome: Ibid., 18.

  Portrait busts give him a full head of curly hair: for example, Capitoline Museums, inv. MC 1156; Louvre Museum, inv. Ma 1264.

  She looks serenely lovely in a portrait bust: Louvre Museum, inv. Ma 1193.

  Trajan was never much of a student: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 68.74; Pseudo-Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus, 13.8.

  an obsequious source: Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus, 15.1–3.

  no one believes in a conspiracy: Suetonius, Domitian, 21.

  the rumor that she helped the men who killed him: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 67.15.2–4.

  Nerva managed to combine what had seemed incompatible: Tacitus, Agricola, 3.

  “May good success”: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 68.3.4; Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus 8.6, 7.6–7, 8.1.

  “I enter here as the same kind of woman”: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 68.5.5.

  His portrait busts: for example, Glyptothek, Munich inv. 336.

  looked stupid and was believed to be honest: Ronald Syme, Tacitus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 39.

  “Everything is under the authority of one man”: Pliny the Younger, Letters, 3.20.12.

  A flattering speech claims that unlike the tyrant Domitian: Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus, 20.

  into his carriage and even of entering citizens’ houses: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 68.7.3.

  When friends accused him of being too accessible: Eutropius, Abridgement of Roman History, 8.5.1.

  A senator describes being charmed: Pliny the Younger, Letters, 5.6.36.

  “grain and spectacles”: Fronto, Principles of History, 20 (A 259).

  “bread and circuses”: Juvenal, Satire, 10.81.

  “plenty of bread and a seat at the chariot races”: Dio Chrysostom, Oration, 31.31.

  “the camps, bugles, and trumpets”: Pliny the Younger, Letters, 9.2 LCL translation, 83, www.loebclassics.com/view/pliny_younger-letters/1969/pb_LCL059.83.xml?readMode=recto.

  Trajan was styled a military man of the old school: Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus, 44.

  “my excellent and most loyal fellow soldiers”: Digest, 29.1.

  marching on foot and fording rivers with the rank and file: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 68.23.1.

  had his
own clothing cut into strips to serve: Ibid., 68.8.2.

  “If Sura had desired to kill me”: Ibid., 68.5.6, Loeb translation.

  “as much as her gender allows”: Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus, 83.8.

  he praises the two imperial ladies: Ibid., 83–84.

  Ambitious writers: Pliny, Letters, 9.28.1.

  a student of music and math: Nicomachus of Gerasa, Encheiridion Harmonicum, in Karl von Jan, Musici Scriptores Graeci. Aristoteles, Euclides, Nicomachus, Bacchius, Gaudentius, Alypius et Melodiarum Veterum Quidquid Exstat (Stuttgart, Ger.: Teubner, 1995 [1895]), 242, line 14.

  philosophical school in Athens: E. M. Smallwood, Documents Illustrating the Principates of Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), no. 442, 152.

  Trajan called the Treasury the spleen: Pseudo-Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus, 42.21.

  “I have no idea what you are talking about, but I love you as myself”: Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, 488.

  “not merely as the partner of his bed and affections, but also as his helpmate”: Dio Chrysostom, On Kingship, 3.119.

  Later generations looked back fondly on Plotina: Pseudo-Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus, 42.20–21; Cassius Dio, Roman History, 68.5.5.

  “woman of the highest moral integrity”: E. Bormann, ed. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum vol. XI, Inscriptiones Aemiliae, Etruriae, Umbriae Latinae, Pars II, fasc. 1, Inscriptiones Umbriae, viarum publicarum, instrumenti domestici (Berlin: Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1901, impr. iter. 1968): 6520, p. 981; compare Pliny the Younger, Letters, 9.28.1.

  Hercules was popular in Trajan’s hometown: Gaditanus—the cult of Hercules of Gades (modern Cádiz), the city facing the island where Hercules was supposed to have labored.

  he often had the demigod depicted on his coins: for example, RIC II Trajan 49, http://numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric.2.tr.49_denarius.

  Pliny says that like Hercules, Trajan: Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus, 14.5, 82.7; Dio Chrysostom also compares Trajan to Hercules, Oration, 1.56–84.

  Then he compares Trajan to Jupiter: Pliny the Younger, Panegyricus, 80.3–5.

  A sculpted relief on the Arch of Trajan in central Italy: Located in Benevento, ancient Beneventum.