A Brief History of the Private Lives of the Roman Emperors (2 page)

There is nothing original in this book. Even my view that the Emperor Caligula was not mad, just very bad and very dangerous to know, is allowed by his latest biographer.

The unexpected behaviour of the famous and infamous in Ancient Rome, which I may have pointed up in these pages, came from mostly standard sources; what I hope has been fresh is the approach.
Cicero revealed himself as a Rachmanlike slum landlord in a letter to his friend Atticus. The loan of money at 48 per cent by Brutus, ‘the noblest Roman of them all’, is a matter of
Senatorial record. Julius Caesar’s disdainful preoccupation with his despatch box at the Games was witnessed by thousands and recorded by a few. The picture of his great-nephew, Augustus,
friendless and bored in his old age, watching small boys playing dice in his little house on the Palatine Hill, hoping his wife has found him a virgin for the afternoon, is my emphasis but not my
invention; indeed Ancient Rome was so literate, so lively and so malicious that the amateur historian has no need to invent anything, unlike, say, the mediaevalist. (My favourite anecdote has a
very modern ring. One of Nero’s aunts was very mean. She let it be known that she did not ‘appreciate’ – as New Yorkers say – one young man around town saying she sold
old shoes. He sent back a message. ‘Tell her I didn’t say she sold them; I said she
bought
them!’)

Tiberius, Augustus’ stepson and son-in-law, was the next Emperor and essentially the most scrupulous and conscientious of the bunch, and the misanthropy which soured him
only came from his bitterness at being forced (by Augustus) to abandon the only human being he loved – his wife. (Augustus, by the way, was certainly not poisoned by his wife,
Livia, as seen on television. They had lived together for forty years and did not particularly like each other, but she had no reason to murder him, like two other Empresses, the succession of her
son, Tiberius, being secure.)

Hating Rome, and indeed all mankind, Tiberius took his revenge by bequeathing as Emperor the ‘serpent’ (his word) Caligula, his great-nephew, who, inevitably assassinated, was
succeeded, illegally, by his uncle Claudius, not the dithering benevolent figure of recent impersonations but the most cunning and ruthless of the Julio-Claudian clan. Poisoned by a dish of his
favourite mushrooms, and finished off by his doctor, Claudius was succeeded by his seventeen-year-old nephew, a golden boy who did not breathe freely until he had murdered his mother.

(An explanation for their appalling conduct must be that these characters, with the exception of the first two, Caesar and Augustus, who had loving parents, endured such traumatic childhoods as
would make a social worker of today vow to get them off any charge.)

The first five years of Nero’s fourteen-year reign were notably benign, guided by Seneca, hero of Classics masters down the ages, whose enforcement of his usury provoked the bloody
rebellion of Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni and Commander-in-Chief of the English, who appealed to the Emperor Nero. (This lady was coeval with St Paul, so, with Seneca as link, they would all have
known about each other.) Nero, historically unpopular for trying to eliminate an unappealing sect of Jews, not yet known as Christians, was the most charming of these Emperors, the most visionary
and the only aesthete. He was of course cruel – Romans were – but this twentieth century, with Auschwitz as its visiting card, has no right to point a finger at
the
first. Nero tried to abolish the Games, and his proposal that he stop a war by appearing before the army of the enemy and bursting into tears should be an idea considered for contemporary heads of
state by the United Nations.

Finally a word about the essays, which are intended to set the background against which the leading characters perform. I have included – perhaps a piece of self-indulgence – one on
Rome and her Jews, relatively more numerous than they are today but ignored by Ancient Roman historians and not much dealt with by the moderns. Further I have not really well understood the
religions of the Romans but I sense that neither did they. I see I have omitted the
haruspices,
the practice of divining the correct course of actions by examining the entrails of an animal.
I remember the Roman general thus warned against his proposed attack ignoring the advice and winning. I believe the only ‘ism’ Romans believed in was that of
pragma.

To our eyes now, Ancient Rome does not appear so ancient or so far away. It was nearer in spirit to turn-of-the-century Manhattan – with its polyglottery, very rich and very poor –
and in its power-broking and denunciations, to contemporary Washington, capital of the present number-one world power.

This book is the personal view of an amateur and will therefore contain inaccuracies, for which I apologize. I have snuffled round Roman vestiges in England, France, Italy and Israel (once with
the late General Yadin). I published a book on Aphrodisias but I have not yet been there, or seen much of Rome in North Africa, though reading Susan Raven is a fine substitute for a visit.
Patrolling the perimeter of the Circus Maximus in Rome, I noticed one side was dug into the rock of the Aventine Hill and I fancied I heard the echo of the din made by the very early morning crowd
claiming their free seats for the chariot races which so annoyed Caligula, trying to sleep in his palace on the top of the Palatine Hill opposite.

GLOSSARY

AEDILE
magistrate in charge of the infrastructure of the city of Rome. Originally four in number (two elected by the plebs, two by the patricians). Not
an essential step on the
cursus honorum
– the political career – but because of their involvement in the Games, a way of getting into the public eye.

AFRICA
to Romans only the countries bordering the Mediterranean.

AGER PUBLICUS
the land belonging to the state, in Italy and the provinces, leased out by the censors or given to veterans.

ALLIES OF ROME
title given to a city friendly to Rome in the Italian peninsula; nations further afield were called ‘Friend and Ally of the People
of Rome’.

AMPHORA
the standard container of the ancient world, a two-handled jar with a narrow neck for storing or transporting anything which could be poured,
like grain, wine and oil; holding an average of nine gallons in Greece and six to seven pints in Rome.

AQUILIFER
the top soldier in the legion who carried the silver eagle and was expected to die rather than surrender it.

ASIA
western Turkey, including the islands of Lesbos, etc., and the cities of Smyrna and Ephesus.

ASSEMBLY
there were three: 1) the Centuriate, ancient unwieldy, consisting of the plebs and the patricians together in
their
classes. Elected consuls,
praetors
and
censors
and passed laws. 2) The Assembly of the People, arranged in the thirty-five tribes of Rome, summoned by a consul or praetor. Elected the
quaestors
, the
curule aediles
and the tribunes of the soldiers, with the patricians. Passed laws and had trials. 3) The Plebeian Assembly, no patricians, passed laws and conducted
trials. In all Assemblies the block vote was operated.

AUCTORITAS
authority plus prestige, credibility and influence.

AUGURS
elected priests to the official College of, to check out whether a proposed undertaking – anything from a war to a marriage – had the
approval of the gods.

BARBARIAN
any non-Roman, originally any non-Greek.

CAMPUS MARTIUS
military training ground outside the city walls to the north-west, with space for horticulture, depots for wild animals, temples and
mausoleums.

CENSOR
this office was the zenith of a respected political career, to which only a consular (q.v.) could be elected, for five years. The two censors
controlled the membership of the Senate, the equestrian order, and awarded state contracts, apart, of course, from coping with the

CENSUS
which was the roll call of every
male Roman citizen, with his tribe and status, brought up to date every five years.

CISALPINE GAUL
Gaul from this, the southern, Roman, point of view. Conquered by an Ahenobarbus ancestor of Nero, securing for Rome the territory from
north-west Italy to the Pyrenees.

CITIZEN
a Roman citizen could not be flogged or punished without a trial and had the right of appeal
(vide
St Paul). He could be conscripted at
seventeen and was entitled to the corn dole.

CITRUS WOOD
no longer extant and not to do with lemon trees
but cut from the roots of the cedars of Lebanon; the most coveted and
valuable wood for cabinet makers in the ancient world. Table tops were mounted on ivory legs; Seneca had a lot of them.

CLASSES
there were five official classes in Rome, according to economic status; the ‘head count’ did not have any, therefore no vote.

CLIENTELA
every grand Roman patron was attended in the morning by a group of hangers-on or dependents, ‘clients’, who were treated by him
with consideration or hauteur according to his mood or nature, but the relationship was important to both parties, crucial between former master and freedman.

CONSCRIPT FATHERS
senators enjoyed this designation because it reminded them of their antiquity.

CONSUL
the top job in Rome under the Republic, with limitless power, and an office to which Emperors were frequently elected. Strictly speaking a Roman
could not be elected consul before the age of forty-two. Two were elected annually and their names, with the abbreviation ‘cos’, were used to date events.

CONSULAR
(noun) a former consul who would be used to govern provinces, become censor, etc.

CUNNUS
root of the English word ‘cunt’ and the French ‘con’.

CURSUS HONORUM
the four steps of a political career – senator, quaestor, praetor, consul.

CURIA
place where the Senate met, in our period not fixed.