The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Roman Empire (38 page)

This is where an author of a book like this comes to a grinding and terror-stricken halt. How
does
one cover Nero in a few paragraphs? What, by Jove, does one leave out? With Nero, it's impossible either to exaggerate or to qualify enough. But let's try.

First, remember that Nero came to the principate at the age of 16.
Sixteen.
Think back to when
you
were 16, and consider the possibilities. Second, consider that, as a 16-year-old, he had three important influences: his powerful teacher, Seneca; his powerful praetorian prefect, Burrus; and . . . his mother. Like most adolescents, he rebelled against all of them eventually. Third, realize that Nero's ego was rather like that of Mr. Toad—he craved recognition and importance. He was given to effusive and melodramatic self-indulgence, self-adulation, self-reproach, and self-aggrandizement. Take all these things, mix in a dangerously volatile temperament, add in all the power in the world, and you get what you get.

Nero, for all his faults, had talent. He was a creative and imaginative person, an artist (though not to his own estimation), a person with star power. Hated by senators, he continued to be venerated by a loyal following of people. Suetonius comments that flowers mysteriously appeared on his grave for years, his edicts still circulated, and rumors abounded around the Empire that, like Elvis, Nero was still alive and would soon return to the stage.

Nero's first eight years went well for Nero and generally for Rome. He and Agrippina poisoned Britannicus at dinner in 55. Under the guidance of Seneca and Burrus, Nero and Claudius's bureaucracy managed the state and provinces well, provided for the people, and gained victories (through his generals) in the east and in Britain. But a power struggle developed with Agrippina, who considered herself the real font of power. She
was
powerful, popular, and connected. Nero feared her, and eventually killed her after plots that would rival any Batman movie. Burrus, in 62, died and was replaced by Tigellinus (a cruel and ruthless prefect who encouraged Nero's worst capacities and insecurities); Seneca retired in dismay, and Nero was free to be Nero.

 
Great Caesar's Ghost!
Nero's efforts to blamelessly rid himself of his arch-nemesis mother sound like a comic book. He constructed a ship in which the cabin would cave in, kill Agrippina, and sink the ship. After a mock reconciliation, he sent her off in the boat. When the ceiling crashed down, the high sides of a couch saved Agrippina and a maid. When the maid tried to save herself by calling out that she was Agrippina, the sailors clubbed her to death and started to sink the boat. Agrippina secretly swam to safety at her nearby villa. When Nero's men arrived to finish her off, her last words (melodramatic like her son to the end) were “Strike here!” as she pointed to her womb.

From there, things went pretty much up in flames. Nero began appearing increasingly in public as a competitor in musical competitions, acting, and chariot racing. This was encouraged by staged public adulation and culminated in a grand concert tour of Greece in 66 and 67. Some of the famous games of Greece were moved to allow him to appear in them. Nero received carefully prepared adulation, awards (many awarded to him before he got there), and left having granted his hosts freedom from Macedonia. He was a success.

In Rome, however, things had not been going well. Nero ruthlessly persecuted political enemies and anyone he felt rivaled his popularity. This led to intense hatred from senators and the upper class, who considered his artistic pursuits, especially in public, to be appalling and demeaning. He confiscated large estates and lands, mishandled the provinces, and ignored the legions. Fear, loathing, and discontent bred plots against him, including a famous one in which Suetonius, the writer Lucian, and the satirist Petronius all lost their lives in 65.

 
Veto!
The saying that “Nero fiddled while Rome burned” comes from the story that, while observing the flames, Nero donned a dramatic costume and sang “Disco Inferno.” Okay, really it was “The Fall of Troy,” and his own composition. But if he accompanied himself, it would have been on the lyre, not the fiddle (which hadn't been invented yet).

Over time, Nero also became increasingly despotic and depraved in his personal life. He was rumored to roam the streets in disguise for fun, mugging, stealing, and sexually assaulting people. (He was once badly beaten up by a senator whose wife he assaulted, and from then on, Nero kept guards close by on these escapades in case things went badly for him.)

He divorced and exiled his first wife, Octavia, in 62 in order to marry his beautiful mistress, Poppaea Sabina. He had Octavia's head brought to Poppaea to gloat over, but later kicked Poppaea to death in a rage while she was pregnant in 65. He married Messalina in 66, but turned his attention to a boy, Sporus, who resembled Poppaea. Nero had Sporus castrated and “married” him. Nero was also “married” to another lover, Pythagoras, although the saying was that whereas he was Sporus's husband, he was Pythagoras's wife. And this is only
some
of the naughty bits.

 
Roamin' the Romans
When in Rome, you can visit the remains of Nero's unfinished
Domus Aurea,
or Golden House—or at least the grounds. The house, on the Mons Oppius, had an entrance high enough to house Nero's 125-foot-tall statue, a mile-long colonnade, rooms with panels that sprayed guests with flowers and perfume, and a dining hall rotated like the heavens by water power (a precursor to Seattle's Space Needle restaurant). The Coliseum, which is named for the same statue of Nero that stood there, is roughly situated on the site of the artificial lake built for the extensive grounds.

A great turning point in Nero's career came in 64, when the city of Rome caught fire and burned for three days. Most of the city, including the imperial quarters and the city center, was obliterated. Nero was not in Rome, but he rushed back and tried to organize the fighting of the fire. When that proved impossible, he opened public buildings and his own gardens as shelters, brought in subsidized food, and worked tirelessly (and often in the face of personal danger) to help the victims of the blaze.

The rumor, however, that he had started the fire to make way for his own grandiose plans for the city, soon took hold. It is probably not true, but his dramatic changes to Rome (including many good building and urban planning developments) and his construction of a stupendous imperial residence named the “Golden House” encouraged suspicion. Nero tried to deflect suspicion and criticism by making a small and
secretive sect of Jews, the Christians, into scapegoats. It didn't work, and rebuilding the city and Nero's palace brought on a currency devaluation that fueled Nero's now smoldering reputation.

Trouble began to brew among the legions, in the provinces, and in Rome itself. Increasingly harsh taxes, Nero's excesses, his confiscations, his un-Roman ways, and growing despotism were alienating everyone who mattered.

 
Great Caesar's Ghost!
Nero's was the first persecution of Christians and the first time that Christianity was officially recognized as a sect distinct from Judaism. Several factors may have contributed to singling them out. St. Paul had been executed previously, and may have brought Christians name recognition and public suspicion. Some speculate that singling out Christians both served its purpose and shielded the larger Jewish community, who lived primarily in one of the quarters that hadn't burned. In any case, Christians were executed with all the exquisite horror of Roman spectacle. Some were put in animal skins and torn apart by dogs in the amphitheater; others were crucified and then burned as lamps after dark.

By 67, when Nero returned from his concert tour of Greece, things were beginning to close in. In 68, the legions of Gaul and Spain began to revolt under their governors and commanders. Vindex, one of the governors of Gaul, revolted and raised troops. He had the support of Servius Sulpicius Galba, the governor of Hispania Terraconensis (Spain). The loyal commander of Germany, Rufus, defeated Vindex. But then
his
troops revolted and proclaimed
him
emperor. Rufus declined, but Galba had been building support for himself at Rome. He offered the praetorians large sums to support him, and they deserted Nero as he contemplated flight. Other legions began to declare for Galba or for their own commanders.

Nero tried to flee to the east by ship, but couldn't persuade the guards to help him and he returned to Rome. He apparently contemplated making a dramatic and pathetic appeal to the people in the Forum, wearing black, and composed part of such a speech. Later that night, he awoke to find the palace deserted. He ran about calling and searching for someone, and finally ran out into the street. There he found one of his freedmen, Phaon, who convinced him to go in disguise to a nearby villa outside of town (probably not to save but to betray him). Nero was recognized along the way,
terrified by what he heard people saying about him, and periodically engaged in more self-pitying displays and comments. Phaon brought a letter to the villa from the senate declaring Nero a public enemy.

Nero tried to muster the courage to kill himself (he encouraged others to go first as an example), but hesitated, berated himself, and delayed. As the guards arrived at the villa to take him back, Nero stabbed his throat with the help of his secretary. Melodramatic to the last, his final words were reported to be either, “Such an artist dies in me” or, to a centurion who tried to stop the blood flow, “Too late, but ah, what loyalty!” Whichever it was, it was a fitting tag to the end of the Julio-Claudian line.