The Reign of Nero

After the death of Claudius was announced (54 A.D) the Senate, responded routinely and gave its assent to Nero's succession. Nero was only sixteen years of age. And, taking his great, great-grandfather Augustus as his model, Nero began his rule adhering to what he perceived to be ideals. While there were a few initial executions (many of them encouraged by his mother) this was moderated when Nero made his old tutor, the Stoic philosopher and orator Seneca, his advisor, and Seneca became a power behind the throne. Nero was also supported by Burrus, the commander the Praetorian forces. Like Caligula, Nero wanted public adoration, and the obvious way to acquire it was as a benevolent ruler. He delivered a speech to the Senate that inspired widespread praise, and claims arose that a new Golden Age had begun.

At first Nero seemed quite decent. Nero disliked having to sign death sentences against criminals. Often, instead, he gave them clemency. Then he banned capital punishment. While attending gladiator contests he turned his head rather than watch the blow to the head that assured that a fallen man was dead, and for a while he banned contests that involved bloodshed, and in their place he organized poetry competitions. He would get much worse.

Often the first five years of Nero’s reign are thought to be a special period when Nero, under the guidance of Burrus and Seneca, ruled well. In his first five years of rule, while under the influence of Seneca, he gave slaves the right to file complaints against their masters. He pardoned people who had written unflattering descriptions of him. He left the charge of treason unused. He gave assistance to cities that had suffered from disasters. And, he won the hearts of many of his subjects by lowering taxes.

Like some other youths with artistic pretensions, Nero believed he had sensitivity and genius. He was a lover of all things Greek. He wished to be accepted not just for the political power that he had inherited but also for this genius, and he read his poems in public, played the lyre and acted in plays. But like Caligula, Nero was a mediocrity, and as a mediocrity he lacked the elegance of restraint. He became bored with his young wife, the noble born and virtuous Octavia, and he became involved with a former slave woman.

Nero's mother, Agrippina, got along well with the noble Octavia, whom she could control, but now Nero began seeing less of his mother, and she resented seeing her influence over him slip away. It is often thought that Agrippina had intended to rule Rome through Nero. Her resentment and then outrage drove Nero further away. He grew hostile toward her, saw less of her, and he took away the honor guard that had accompanied her wherever she went.

Agrippina began talking of replacing Nero with his half-brother Britannicus. Nero resented and feared this to such an extent he had Britannicus poisoned (55 A.D.) -- apparently, although Brittanicus had people tasting his food, he didn’t have people taste the water which he used to cool off a hot drink, and there Nero had the poison put, during a dinner that Nero attended; At least that is the story.
 

Nero increasingly wanted to rid himself of the burden on his mother, who had retreated into retirement. Perhaps the final straw was when his mother tried to support Octavia against Nero’s new girlfriend, Poppaea Sabina. After trying to kill his mother by putting her in a boat that was intended to sink (she swam to shore), he then claimed that her messenger, when he came to report her escape from the accident, had tried to murder him, he ordered a certain Anicetus break into her house and batter her to death (59 A.D.).

The crime shocked Rome, but eventually, perhaps due to the help of the clever propaganda of Seneca, most of the Senate eventually gave lavish proclamation of thanks that Nero escaped from such a dangerous woman, and this encouraged Nero to rid himself of one more nuisance: his troublesome aunt, whom he also had murdered.

Now Nero felt free to be the artist that he was by temperament. He instituted two new major festivals in his own honor, at which he gave exhibitions of his own ‘celestial voice.’ At first all this caused no major problem. But in 62 Burrus died. In 62, Nero's minister. Burrus, died, and Nero's aged Stoic advisor, Seneca, felt alienated from those who remained in Nero's inner circle. Seneca retired, and Burrus was replaced by Ofonius Tigellinus, who amused Nero with his callousness. Tigellinus described Stoics, including Seneca, as hypocrites for proclaiming preference for living simply, and he began a corrupting influence on Nero, making him become a despot like Caligula.

In 62, Nero feared that his wife, Octavia, was spreading dislike of him in his household and at court. He had a handyman confess to adultery with Octavia. He banished her, and soon he had her put to death. He may have been encouraged in this by his love interest at the time, Sabina Poppaea -- one of many attractive women across history who sought association with men of wealth or fame. And Nero married her shortly thereafter.

Now Nero threw off all restraint. He took his fondness for horse-racing and music to greater heights. Nero continued to indulge his appetite for company and for food. His dinner parties might last from noon to midnight. Like Caligula he grew fat. There are stories of other outrages, such as Nero disguising himself and roaming the streets (with a bodyguard to keep him safe, of course) and beating strangers up. Nero continued to pursue his artistic ambitions. He entered singing contests, and needing approval he took along a group trained to clap for him. Taking his dignity very seriously -- he was after all emperor -- he let singers who out sang him know of his resentment, and at one contest he forbade other contestants to perform. There are stories too of people so frightened of him that they feigned dying in order to leave the endless recitations. The emperor capped his career by taking a tour of Greece in 67-8, entering large numbers of contents in music and chariot racing, (which he, of course, always won) collecting some 1808 crowns plus other awards. In the meantime he was ignoring the true business of government and, like Caligula, bankrupting the treasury, and his misgovernment was causing the rise of conspiracies that would prove his undoing.

It was at this time (64 A.D) that a major revolt broke out in Palestine. The province of Judea had been troubled for some time, and a riot broke out when a Jewish High Priest refused to sacrifice on behalf of the emperor. A Roman garrison was destroyed. After a failed effort by Florus, Nero appointed Vespasian, the future emperor, to conduct the campaign. He reconquered Galilee in 67, and Samaria and Idumaea in 68. Then, in 69, the overthrow and death of Nero had been announced, he put his son Titus in charge of the final conquest of Jerusalem and went off to eventually claim the office of emperor.

It was also during Nero's reign that the bloody revolt of Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni took place in Britain. Britain had been invaded by Julius Caesar in 55 B.C. but had only recently been actually subdued by the Emperor Claudius in A.D. 43. London (Roman Londinium) had only been in existence for fourteen years at the time of Boudicca's revolt. Nero's able general and governor of Britain, Suetonius Paulinus, handled the dangerous job of keeping the province of Britain a part of the Roman Empire by defeating Boudicca's force

But back to the problems that Nero had created for himself. As with Caligula, Tigellinus encouraged informers to come forward, who made false accusations that gave Nero an excuse to seize the victims property and money. Often people were sent an order to commit suicide, not even allowing them to defend themselves. Seneca and Gaius Petronius perished in this way, as well as many of the last remnants of old Roman aristocratic families. Finally, he put to death several of better generals on the frontiers. By such executions Nero caused others, fearing for their lives, to join in plots against him.

And Nero indulged in the pleasures of religious ecstasy. He was attracted to evangelists of various religious persuasions: to Zoroastrians, to a cult of a virgin-mother goddess named Arargatis, and to the cult of another virgin-mother goddess named Juno-Canathos. He spoke with Jews about Judaism. He met with a Gnostic magician named Simon Magus. And it is rumored that he interviewed the apostle Paul. But none of this interest in religious ecstasy was to benefit to Rome, the benefits of religious ecstasy dependent upon to character of the devotee.

In the year 64, while Nero was at his villa at Antium thirty-five miles away, a great fire broke out in Rome. Fanned by winds, the fire raged for five days. Then it flared up again and burned for four more days. It burned wooden tenement houses -- which were as high as six stories. And it burned the homes of the wealthy, including Nero's palace.

The fire might have been started by the overturning of one of the barbecue-like stoves (a brazier) that people used inside their homes, or by an oil lamp. But suspicions of arson arose, not because evidence of arson had been found but because people were inclined to believe that disaster was the work of some kind of malevolence. And with Christians still seen as Jews, and Jews seen as haters of society, suspicions were caste in their direction.

Nero instituted relief for those made homeless by the fire. He launched a program to rebuild Rome. Streets in the burned out area were to be widened. Tenements were to be reduced in height. There was to be open space between tenements and other buildings. There was to be more firefighting equipment and an extended distribution of water.

Nero had his own palace to replace, and in a burned out area that had been most crowded, Nero took three hundred acres for himself and started rebuilding a palace, to be called "The Golden House." This was unpopular with the upper classes, who saw it as a waste of money, and it was unpopular with the poor who had lived in the area. Among the poor a rumor arose that Nero had started the fire to make space for his great mansion, and graffiti appeared ridiculing Nero for building his palace at the expense of others. It was to be hugely extravagant affair, capped with a 120 foot golden statue of Nero himself.

Here is a passage from Suetonius’ Life of Nero

For pictures of the interior of the Golden House which have been excavated, click here   or here . You can also find more about the Golden House (Domus Aurea) on pages 131-133 of Ramage. Countering the rumor that Nero had set the fire in order to clear space for his new palace, an official investigation concluded that the fire had been started by Jewish fanatics. Nero now learned of the difference between Christians as Jews and other Jews, and he put blame for the fire on the Christians. As punishment, Nero sent some Christians to their death in the Arena. But, according to the historian Tacitus, many Romans remained suspicious of Nero and they pitied the Christians, believing that instead of being sacrificed for the welfare of the state, the Christians were being sacrificed as Nero's scapegoats.

In conformity with the notion that power corrupts, Nero was not inclined to bear frustrations with the same patience that was required of common people. He let his emotions get the best of him and flew into rages, killing his pregnant wife, Sabina Poppaea, by kicking her in the stomach. In places outside Rome, Nero remained popular, but not in Rome. There, many thought he was unfit to be emperor, and in Rome a conspiracy was hatched against him that included numerous Romans with prestige. Nero learned of the conspiracy, led by Piso. Executions followed, and some people were ordered to commit suicide, including Nero's old advisor, Seneca.

Nero might have thought that he could successfully counter opposition with his retaliations, but in fact, like Caligula, his power depended upon what others thought of him, and he was losing the support of too many people. Most significantly -- in a society where people could not vote someone out of office -- he was losing the support of those who commanded armies. The fact that he was failing to pay his soldiers properly didn’t help. Military commanders outside Rome were aware of Nero's unpopularity in Rome. Soon after his return from his tour of Greece, Nero ordered the execution of Rome's commander in Spain, Servius Galba, and, with nothing to lose, Galba openly declared himself a subject of the Senate and the Roman people rather than of Nero. Troops in Gaul had also withdrawn their support from Nero, and in a trip there Nero failed to win back their loyalty. Nero found himself abandoned except for a few servants, and perhaps realizing that this meant death for him, he ran through the palace screaming hysterically.

Sensing Nero's lack of power, the Senate roused itself and declared Nero a public enemy and ordered his execution. The Praetorians had been lavishly bribed to support Galba. Soldiers closed in on Nero at his villa four miles south of Rome. Nero blamed everybody for his demise but himself. With the help of a servant he killed himself. He supposedly said, right before killing himself, "What an artist I die as!". He died at thirty, bringing an end to the dynasty begun by Augustus: the Julio-Claudians.  


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