The Weak Link (2)

The year is AD 59. Nero has been Emperor for five years and up until now, things have been
going fairly well.
The murder of Agrippina however was like a seismic shift in the imperial court. Although
Nero had tried to make his mother out to be a traitor - plotting against him to have him
killed - no one really bought it. Agrippina had dedicated half her life to securing her son the
position of Emperor and her antics, bold though they may have been, demonstrated her
immense need to remain a part of the close imperial circle. She may have wanted to hurt her
son, but only to the effect of making him realise the error of his ways, and reinstating her to
her former position of prestige.
With her now gone, Nero was something of a new man. The person who had gotten him to
where he was, was out of the picture - his debt had been cancelled, and he was free to
redefine his reign as one to reflect his personality; a lover of arts. For one brought up in
Rome, Nero was exceptional for his great love of all things Greek. He loved the theatre,
sports, chariot racing, poetry and music. He practised chariot racing within a private
enclosure and invited members of the public to join him.
In late AD 59 he instituted a set of games known as the Ludi Iuvenales ('Youth Games') to
celebrate the first shaving of his beard- Nero was now 22. The games featured public
gymnastic and artistic competitions, and we are told that many members of the nobility were
strongly encouraged to join in.
One thing that must be understood is the Roman upper class' attitude to stage performancesthey found them deplorable, representative of idleness, and beneath the dignity of a Roman
aristocrat. This was an attitude that had been present since the days of the Republic, as Nero
would have been aware, but he let his love of the arts be known to all. It is helpful to note
however that stage shows and games were popular among the masses in spite of the
nobility's feelings, so it is likely that Nero was trying to build up his support with them
through their shared passion. By forcing aristocrats to perform, Nero made sure that the
upper classes could not look down their noses at him from a distance- their hands were dirty
too.
Nero's love for the arts grew and a larger set of games, the 'Neronia', modelled on the Greek
Olympics were introduced the following year.
In AD 61, a revolt broke out in Britain led by the Queen of the Iceni tribe, Boudicca.
Several different causes for the revolt have been suggested by our ancient sources but
maladministration by the Romans is a likely factor. The tribes burnt several British towns to

the ground including London and St. Albans before finally being defeated by the Roman
governor, Suetonius Paulinus, and his legions. Boudicca committed suicide by poison to
spare being paraded in a Roman triumph.
Back in Rome, things began to get worse. for the Senate at least. Nero reinstated those longhated treason trials, last seen under Gaius Caligula, and Antistius Sosianus was the first
to have his head put on the chopping block. Sosianus wrote some verses satirising the
Emperor and read them aloud at a dinner party. The case was set to see Sosianus deposed
from his position as praetor, followed by execution, but for the intervention of Thrasea
Paetus- the same man who walked out of the Senate on hearing of Agrippina's murder
[see The Weak Link (part 1)]. Thrasea convinced the Senate to let Sosianus be let off with a
sentence of exile, and spare his life.
Thrasea represented the last of a dying breed- a man hell bent on upholding the old values of
the Roman Republic, and it was not long before he fell out of favour with the Emperor.
In AD 62, the imperial court was dealt a blow that would have deeply felt consequencesBurrus, the Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, and Nero's long-time trusted adviser, died.
There was speculation about whether the death was natural or not, as tended to be the case
in the Roman Empire, and our main sources all have differing
opinions (Dio and Suetonius vote foul play, while Tacitus sits on the fence). Either way,
one of perhaps the only two voices of sound reason were now gone, and things would go from
bad to worse.
Seneca and Burrus had been a team, each offering their own distinctive style of 'adviser' to
the Emperor, but neither were yes-men. They told Nero what he needed to hear whether he
liked it or not, and managed to last a significantly long time doing so. With Burrus now gone,
Seneca's influence began to wane.
This loss of reason was helped even more so by Nero's appointment of 2 new commanders to
replace Burrus- one Faenius Rufus, who was relatively popular with the masses, and a
certain Gaius Ofonius Tigellinus who according to Dio,
had outstripped all his contemporaries in licentiousness and bloodthirstiness [1]
Seneca, hearing of how he was now spoken about to the Emperor, requested that Nero allow
him to retire, but Nero refused. The elderly philosopher then dismissed his large entourage,
probably for fear of spies in the midst, and kept away from Rome anyway, pleading ill health
or claiming his intensive studies kept him at home.
With both advisers now out of the way, it seems that Nero, perhaps with some
helpful prompting from more disreputable confidants, felt freer to exercise his powers as

ruler of the Roman Empire. Two men, Sulla and Plautus, deemed potential rivals for the
position of Emperor, and as such exiled, were now permanently disposed of.
Sulla was murdered at dinner, while Plautus was gotten just as he was preparing to exercise.
In both cases, Nero had their heads removed and brought to him, whereon he made quips
about their appearance. On seeing Plautus, Tacitus reports Nero as remarking aloud to
himself,
..how could such a long-nosed man have frightened you? [2]
With his two perceived rivals out of the way, Nero moved on to another persistent headache,
his wife, the ever chaste and decent Octavia.
Since AD 58, with the emergence of his new love interest, Poppaea Sabina, Nero had
wanted to divorce Octavia, but external pressures prevented him from doing so. But no
more. Claiming barrenness as the reason, the Emperor divorced Octavia and banished her to
Campania (southern Italy)- the public were outraged. Crowds demonstrated openly against
the mistreatment of this woman, with an honourable lineage as a member of the JulioClaudian clan, in favour of the indecent Poppaea.
Nero responded by having Octavia's slaves tortured into a false confession of adultery on the
part of the former Empress, but her slaves would not betray her. One loyal servant is even
said to have remarked to Tigellinus that Octavia's private parts were cleaner than his mouth.
[3]
So Nero called on Anicetus, the freedman who was so instrumental in the death of
Agrippina [see The Weak Link (part 1)] to confess to adultery with Octavia. Having safely
gotten an assassination under his belt, perjury was a walk in the park for Anicetus. He falsely
confessed to a council of the affair, and Octavia was removed and confined to an island called
Pandateria. A few days later, some company commanders of the Praetorian Guard arrived to
dispense the Emperor's former wife. Octavia's pleading fell on deaf ears and she was
suffocated in a piping hot vapour bath after having her wrists slit. Her head was then cut off
and taken to Poppaea, as per her request.
The following year, AD 63, Poppaea bore Nero a daughter. The Emperor was overjoyed and
had both the baby and Poppaea named 'Augusta' [see The Underdog (part 2)], as well as
decreeing the construction of a temple to Fertility, numerous golden statues and a festival.
But his joy was short lived- within four months, Claudia Augusta was dead. Nero's grief
was as great as his glee, and the baby was declared a goddess in addition to being granted
numerous other honours.

By AD 64, Nero was spiralling quickly. He travelled to Naples, intent on making his stage
debut. His love for the arts was as strong as ever and, with Naples being a thoroughly Greek
city (and Greeks being greater lovers of the arts than Romans) he felt this was the perfect
venue to practise for a later performance in Rome. The theatre was packed, and after all had
left, it collapsed- to many, its destruction seemed something of a bad omen, but to Nero he
took it as being a sign of divine providence (as no one died). His performance was to be
followed by a tour of Greece but Nero, for reasons not quite clear, postponed his visit and
returned to Rome.
There, he and Tigellinus continued holding riotous and extravagant banquets, the climax of
one being a formal wedding ceremony between Nero and a member of his entourage- a man
named Pythagoras. The wedding was a shock to Roman morals and values, not least
because Nero was still married to Poppaea, who was pregnant with his second child.
Moreover, marriage between two men was simply unheard of. It is likely that people knew
that Nero had male lovers, but none would have expected a marriage to follow from this. To
underline just how significant a shock this was to the Romans of the time, we need only look
to Tacitus and the event he describes as immediately following the marriage, as if to suggest
the union was its cause
- the Great Fire of Rome.
One of the most famous events in the history of the Roman Empire, the Great Fire of Rome
was devastating to the city. Only 4 of Rome's 14 districts remained intact- 7 were reduced to
ruins, and 3 were completely levelled. With an estimated population of nearly 1 million
people (plus) living in the city, and buildings packed tightly together, the casualties must
have been great.
It is one of the great myths ascribed to the reign of Nero, that he was responsible for the fire
and that, while the city burned, he had played the lyre singing of the destruction of Troy.
In fact, Nero was not even in Rome when the fire started- he was in Antium and returned to
the city when the fire was approaching his mansion. The flames could not be quelled
however, and his palace was also lost in the fire.
His response to the disaster was impressive- he opened up public buildings and his own
private gardens to the homeless, had emergency accommodation constructed, food brought
in from nearby towns and cut the price of corn. When the fire had at last died down after 6
days, and the time came to begin rebuilding, Nero took to the project with gusto. He
implemented new building regulations to prevent a repeat of the incident, including the
incorporation of fireproof stones in every building, a more extensive water supply, and the
prohibition of semi-detached houses.
The enthusiasm with which Nero approached the rebuilding however led to the rumour

(almost certainly fabricated) that he had been responsible for starting the fire in the first
place. The fact Nero also used the project as an opportunity to build his very own Domus
Aurea (Golden House) which covered an enormous scale of at least 125 acres of land, and
was flanked by a 120 ft statue of himself, did little to quell the rumour.
How Nero responded to the rumour only made things worse. In what became the most
notorious feature of his reign, AD 64 was the year Nero took to persecuting Christians. The
exact reasons behind the persecution have long been debated, but the use of a group already
viewed with suspicion by the Roman people as a scapegoat and as a means of shifting focus
from himself seems obvious.
The persecution of the Christians is recounted by Tacitus, and has become famous as one of
the earliest non-Christian references to attest to the existence of Jesus Christ. Tacitus
states that Nero,
punished with every refinement the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were
popularly called) [4]
Some were dressed in wild animal skins, and torn to pieces by dogs, others crucified, whole
others still were apparently made torches and set alight when dark fell. If he had hoped to
increase his popularity, he failed, as his depraved treatment of the sect only served to make
the populace sympathetic to them. Those with any sense could see how out of control Nero
had become, and the following year a conspiracy was formed.
In the next post we will cover the final years of Nero- the final years of the Julio-Claudian
dynasty.

Head of the Emperor Nero from a large statue

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Caesars#/media/File:Nero_Glyptothek_Munich_321.jpg

[1] Cassius Dio, Roman History LXII.13

[2] Tacitus, Annals XIV.59
[3] Dio LXII.13
[4] Tacitus XV.44