Nero

Nero lives on in legend as a capricious tyrant, but he does seem to have had some kind of coherent view of himself as emperor even if his model was Hellenistic rather than Roman. He probably envisaged himself living in immense splendour, enjoying a role as cultural patron. He certainly had some modest talent as a poet and musician and a genuine interest in Greek art, and he inspired what has been seen as a minor renaissance of poetry and prose writing. One of the poets of his age, Lucan, from Spain (ad 39-65), is remembered for his poem Pharsalia that tells of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey. (As with others, a close relationship with Nero soured and eventually Lucan was forced to commit suicide at the age of 25.) However, there remained prejudice against the customs of the east. When Nero founded Greek games, the Neronia, in 60, he shocked the more traditional Romans by competing in them himself and then compounded the embarrassment by expecting senators to join in as well. More seriously in Roman eyes, Nero had no military experience and showed no interest in acquiring any. The maintenance of good order in the army was left to the initiative of local commanders. (A respected biography is Nero: The End of a Dynasty, by Miriam Griffin, London, 1984. This should be supplemented by Edward Champlin’s acclaimed Nero, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 2003, which seeks to create a more sympathetic approach to the emperor.)

For the first years of his reign this did not matter so much. Claudius had left a stable and well-governed empire. In his leading adviser, Seneca, and the Praetorian Prefect, Burrus, Nero was well served. Between them they forced Agrippina out of the imperial palace and Seneca made conciliatory speeches to the senate that helped to smooth relationships there. In contrast to what followed these were looked on later as golden years.

Seneca is remembered as the most articulate proponent of Roman Stoicism. As has been seen (p. 352), the Stoics saw the world as one community, a single brotherhood, evolving under the benevolent care of a presiding force. The individual was both part of this force and yet also subject to it. Within a framework that he could not control he nevertheless had a role in helping to bring the whole to fruition. Unlike the Epicureans, for instance, the Stoic had a duty to take part in public life, to uphold the moral order when he could, and to endure the unfolding of events when he could not. This philosophy fitted well with traditional Roman

Ideals: service to the state, whatever the cost, frugality, and respect for the divine order. Virgil’s Aeneas is a model of the Stoic virtues of courage, loyalty, resolution, and piety.

Stoicism was essentially a conservative and paternalistic philosophy. Stoics were expected to treat their slaves well but there was never any suggestion that slavery itself should be abolished in the name of the brotherhood of man. Yet Stoicism could also inspire resistance. The model in the republic was Cato of Utica (95-46 Bc) who was unflinching in his defence of the senate and republican ideals, committing suicide when he heard of Caesar’s triumph over the old order. Later Stoics offered resistance to those emperors who seemed determined to upset the natural evolution of the world by their tyrannical behaviour. Both Nero and Domitian were to face the opposition of Stoics (though it has long been debated as to whether Stoics resisted because they were Stoics or became Stoics to steel their resistance).

The Stoic could appear stern and unbending. The importance of Seneca is that he humanized Stoicism. (Some, looking at his great wealth and his enjoyment of power under Nero, argue that he was all too human.) He wrote voluminously and not only on philosophy. His works include poetry and tragedies as well as scientific treatises (his main work on science, Naturales Questiones, was an undisputed authority until the works of Aristotle were rediscovered), and even a satire on the reign of Claudius. His philosophical works deal with such topics as anger, clemency, and what is meant by happiness. It is in his letters to his friend Lucilius, 124 of which survive, that he is most approachable. They present the ideals of Stoicism in an easy conversational style and relate them to actual events, the destruction of the city of Lug-dunum (Lyon) in a fire, the everyday treatment of slaves, and how to deal with the unsettling effects of large crowds.

The hopes that Seneca would ensure stability of government proved an illusion. Nero was still very young, inexperienced, and with a childhood which had been poisoned by the morbid tensions and rivalries of the imperial family. Some of his behaviour, escapades through the streets of Rome at night, for instance, was probably no more than adolescent high spirits, and it is hardly surprising that he became impatient with his sober advisers. (Seneca was attacked publicly in 58 with the pointed challenge of explaining how his philosophical beliefs had allowed him to accumulate so much wealth.) Gradually, however, Nero’s activities became more sinister. In 59, egged on by his mistress Poppaea, he decided to murder his mother. After the first attempt to drown her in a collapsible boat ended in farce she was beaten to death. In a sense this was Nero’s coming of age, but the murder of a woman who was so dominant in his life must have left him with an immense psychological burden.

Soon a reign of terror began. Nero’s wife Octavia and, probably, Burrus were among the victims. Seneca was dismissed and later forced to commit suicide. (Whatever can be said of Seneca’s lifestyle, his death as recounted by Tacitus is an exemplar for all Stoics and became a favourite subject in western art.) When a fire destroyed much of Rome in 64 it was soon rumoured that Nero had started it. He almost certainly did not but he used as a scapegoat the small Greek-speaking

Christian community of the city and persecuted them so brutally that he simply did his own image further damage.

Nero’s resplendent response to the devastated centre of Rome was the building of a vast imperial palace, the Domus Aurea, the ‘Golden House, which covered the centre of Rome and was fronted by an immense statue of the emperor. The coinage was debased to help pay for the cost. Wags commented that the citizens of Rome would have to move out to Veii to make room for the vast palace, unless, of course, it extended that far as well! Inside it was sumptuous. ‘Everything, Suetonius tells us, ‘was covered in gold, decorated with gems and shells. The dining rooms had ceilings with ivory panels that were moveable and had openings from which flowers and perfumes issued forth.’ Statues looted from Greece, among them the Dying Gaul from Pergamum, filled the alcoves. The delicately painted walls survived into the sixteenth century and proved an inspiration to Renaissance artists who were let down on ropes into the now darkened and humid rooms to copy them. (An imperial bath had been built over the ruins by the emperor Trajan.)

By now lax control at the centre of the empire was having its impact in the provinces. In Britain the callous insensitivity of a procurator had led to a massive uprising by the Iceni tribe under their chieftain, Boudicca, probably in 6o. The ashes of the destruction of Colchester can still be seen in the archaeological record. Control was only regained at the cost of terrible retribution. In 62 a Roman army was once again humiliated by the Parthians and it took a major show of force to achieve a compromise through which Armenia was stabilized as a buffer state between Rome and the Parthian empire with the Romans forced to recognize a Parthian prince, Tiridates, as its ruler. Most formidable of all was a Jewish revolt, set off in 66 by the clumsy behaviour of a Greek governor, appointed under the influence of Poppaea. A million died in the following years as it was suppressed. This provincial unrest was masked by an extravagant display of feasting and games in 66 when Tiridates was received in Rome and formally accepted as a client king. Nero presented what was in effect a setback for Roman power in the east as a triumph for himself. In the east he was to be known as ‘Lord and Saviour of the World’.

Within Rome pressure on Nero was increasing. Several plots were hatched against him, many involving respectable senators, but Nero managed to foil them all, eliminating many of his finest administrators in the process. The most effective commander of the age, and a hero to Tacitus, was Domitius Corbulo, who had not only kept order on the German frontier but then had managed a brilliant campaign in Armenia which restored Roman prestige there. Nero grew increasingly jealous of his success and ordered him to commit suicide in 67. Three other provincial governors were killed. Nero must have sensed how vulnerable his lack of military experience left him. Among the motives was his desire to increase his wealth. It was said that he had the six richest men in Africa killed so that he could gain their land, apparently half of the province, for himself.

It may have been to escape the atmosphere of hatred that the emperor decided to head east in the hope of finding an audience that would genuinely respond to his

Need for applause. Throughout 67 Nero toured Greece, attending the ancient games that he had rescheduled to fit in with his itinerary. Whether performing as charioteer, orator, or lyre player, he inevitably had to be awarded first prize by the overawed judges. Much of this tour was farcical but it was also the first time an emperor had taken a personal interest in Greek culture and perhaps marks the moment when the Greeks began to feel part of the empire (see also Interlude 8). When he returned to Rome, laden with the crowns of his victories, Nero, significantly, celebrated with a show staged as a military triumph. Any residual loyalty in the army must have been undermined by this desecration of the most prestigious ceremony in Roman political life.

There was also increasing revulsion among provincial aristocrats at Nero’s unworthiness. It was fuelled by discontent over high taxes imposed to finance his rebuilding of Rome. In 68 a revolt broke out in Gaul. It was led by Gaius Julius Vindex, a Romanized Celtic aristocrat who was governor of Gallia Lug-dunensis. He seems to have been appalled at the threat Nero offered to traditional Roman dignity. ‘He has despoiled the whole Roman world, he has destroyed the flower of the senate, he debauched and killed his mother and does not preserve even the semblance of sovereignty.’ Vindex then established links with the governor of one of the Spanish provinces, the 71-year-old Servius Sulpi-cius Galba. Galba was acclaimed as imperator by his troops. According to Suetonius, Nero heard of the revolt on the anniversary of his mother’s death. Firm action might have saved him: the troops of Vindex were attacked by the Rhine legions and easily scattered and Galba had only one legion (although he soon raised another). However, with the fantasy world he had built around himself now crumbling, Nero panicked and set off towards the east, perhaps in a last hope that he would be welcomed there. The senate and the Praetorian Guard (once again rewarded handsomely for their pains) rallied to Galba and proclaimed him the new emperor. Nero, waiting in a suburban villa for a boat to take him from Italy, killed himself.