From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (44 page)

On the night of 18 July 64, when the sky was bright with a full moon, a fire broke out in Rome which raged for over a week; it destroyed at least ten of the fourteen Augustan regions, three of them being totally gutted. Nero, who was at Antium when the disaster started, hurried back to Rome, helped to direct the firefighting and undertook energetic measures to relieve the homeless. He then used the opportunity to benefit both Rome and himself. The re-building of the city was planned on more scientific lines compared with its earlier haphazard growth, with a rectangular street system and blocks of skyscrapers (
insulae
). For himself Nero started to build on the ground between the Esquiline and Caelian hills (where later the Colosseum was built) his vast Golden Palace (Domus Aurea) with its parks, lakes, colonnades and a colossal 120-foot-high statue of Nero himself, together with statues and works of art for which his agents ransacked Greece. Here he could indulge his artistic sense and his mania for the grandiose, while wits might declare that his expropriations not only engulfed the city but would soon embrace Veii, ten miles distant.
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In their loss and misery the city populace turned against Nero and accused him of having started the fire, while rumour added that he had watched the burning city from the Tower of Maecenas and had sung as an aria over it his own ‘Sack of Troy’. Neither charge can be taken seriously: if he had wished to destroy Rome he would hardly have chosen a bright moonlit summer night when the movement of his fire-raisers would have been hard to hide. But he was suspected and in order to divert suspicion from himself he sought a scapegoat. He might have turned to the Jews, who were always unpopular with the mob, but his wife Poppaea was interested in Judaism and her interest may have saved them.
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Instead there was the new sect of the Christians that was now growing up in Rome, about which little was known except that it was popularly credited with ‘humani generis odium’. It is one of the anomalies of history that a sect, which on the human plane, apart from its theological claims, was preaching the brotherhood of man, should have been so misunderstood, but the secrecy of the meetings helped to give rise to such ideas that the Christians practised cannibalism, an idea based probably on a misunderstanding of the Lord’s Supper. Here were suitable victims, and Nero took savage action. In so far as Christians were charged with incendiarism the charge must normally have broken down (and it is only Tacitus that connects the persecution with the fire), and they will have been persecuted as Christians.
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There is little evidence for any persecution outside Rome, but here their punishment was terrible: some were thrown to the beasts in the amphitheatre, and others were smeared with pitch and used by Nero as living torches to light the games he held by night in the imperial gardens and Vatican circus; the victims included, according to tradition, Saints Peter and Paul.
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This attempt to divert hostility from himself, however, recoiled on Nero’s own head, because the ruthlessness of the punishment excited pity for the victims, who were regarded as sacrificed to one man’s cruelty rather than to the national interest.

The rebuilding of Rome required money, and so did Nero’s luxurious life, not to mention a grandiose scheme to link Ostia with Lake Avernus by canal in order to improve access to Rome for sea-borne goods. He therefore imposed forced contributions on Italy and the provinces and seized what he could, not stopping short of putting to death six landowners in Africa who owned half the estates there, in order to appropriate their land. He also tried to ease the position by debasing the coinage. He added an alloy to the silver and reduced the metal content of both gold and silver by a tenth or less, and thus brought them into a better ratio with one another and with the fine new series of
aes
coinage that he proceeded to strike: he also opened a subsidiary mint at Lugdunum. This depreciation was not a good precedent and it certainly did not increase Nero’s popularity, but it was less serious than the steady drain of precious metals to the East in payment for luxury goods.

The growing hatred of the Senate for Nero was aggravated by the increasing number of freedmen, Greeks and Orientals that he employed in high office (e.g. Balbillus, the Prefect of Egypt, 55–59, who is probably the Alexandrine astrologer mentioned on p. 360, or Felix the procurator of Judaea). In 65 it burst into flame in a conspiracy that had been smouldering since 62 and involved at least five eminent senators and as many knights: it was supported by Faenius Rufus, one of the Praetorian Prefects. All the conspirators were united in their intent to kill Nero, but the next step was less clear. The majority probably wished to enthrone the noble C. Calpurnius Piso (after whom the plot is generally named), but others may have thought of Seneca, while a few may even have played with Republican ideas. The plot, however, was betrayed and Nero took savage revenge: trials
intra cubiculum principis
were revived, and his senatorial victims included Piso, Seneca and his nephew the poet Lucan. In the first flush some nineteen persons including Faenius were killed and thirteen exiled.

Frightened by the narrowness of his escape Nero became a ruthless tyrant, employing more spies and the surviving Praetorian Prefect, Tigellinus, to hunt down all suspects. His victims included the son of Ostorius Scapula, the former governor of Britain, and C. Petronius, Nero’s
elegantiae arbiter
, who when dying smashed his precious vases which he knew Nero wanted. Another group of people to taste Nero’s wrath were some Stoic philosophers, headed by Thrasea Paetus, an ex-consul who had shown considerable independence of action. From 63 he had absented himself from the Senate as a protest against injustice and flattery, and he had been angry when the deification of Poppaea was voted (Nero had killed her by a kick in 65, and then married Statilia Messalina in 66); he had also failed to applaud Nero’s ‘divine voice’. The Senate meekly condemned him for setting a bad example, since there was no evidence that he had shared in the conspiracy. His son-in-law Helvidius Priscus was banished and another leading Stoic, Barea Soranus, was executed. These Stoics, Republicans in spirit who used to celebrate the birthdays of Brutus and Cassius, objected to tyranny, if not to monarchy, and they showed a bold and obstinate opposition to Nero’s rule, without resorting to actual treason or conspiracy. Another plot was detected in 66 at Beneventum, led by Annius Vinicianus who perhaps hoped to replace Nero with his own father-in-law Corbulo. This was crushed, but Nero’s position would be vitally endangered if discontent spread to the armies, as might well happen since he had not shared any of their campaigns or troubled to visit their camps. Disloyalty among the army commanders, suspected or real, soon revealed itself. When he had gone to Greece in 66–7 Nero summoned Corbulo and the commanders of Upper and Lower Germany, Scribonius Rufus and Scribonius Proculus, to join him: on arrival they received his order to kill themselves, and obeyed.

In Rome Nero’s autocracy and megalomania increased. He identified himself with various gods (Hercules, Apollo or Helios) and coins depicted him wearing a radiate crown. The month of April was renamed Neroneus and Rome itself might even be called Neropolis. A climax of glory was reached in a magnificent ceremony in 66 when Tiridates came to Rome to be crowned king of Armenia by Nero and to worship him as Mithras. Then Nero the philhellene decided that the Greeks were really the only people who deserved to hear his art: he would go to Greece and compete in the national festivals. This he did with such success that he returned with 1808 first prizes; at Olympia he had fallen out of his ten-horse-team chariot, but was put back and received the crown just the same. It is difficult to reconcile this clowning and levity with his earnest belief in his art. He spent nearly a year in Greece, where he took up Gaius’ plan to cut a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth: at a solemn ceremony he cut the first sod with a golden trowel. An even more spectacular occasion was his special convocation of the Isthmian Games, at which in 196 B.C. Flamininus had proclaimed the freedom of Greece; now Nero proclaimed a second liberation. This in practice meant immunity from taxation and the kind of freedom from the governor of Macedonia that free federate cities enjoyed.
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The Senate was given Sardinia as compensation for this loss of revenue. Nero’s action evoked great enthusiasm and his grand tour was a fine success, but in a more profound sense than in the rumour of 64, he was fiddling while Rome was burning: amid his artistic triumphs and joys he failed to heed the fact the Judaea was in revolt and, more serious still, that the whole basis of his power in the west was threatened. He must return to Rome without delay.

Throughout a large part of the Empire during most of Nero’s reign life was normal and prosperous. He himself, unlike his predecessor, appears to have shown little personal interest in the provinces apart from Greece. The Alpes Cottiae were turned into a small procuratorial province
c.
58, Latin rights were given to the inhabitants of the Alpes Maritimae, and Pontus was annexed
c.
64. Nero is said to have had ambitious schemes for campaigns in the Caucasus area and in Africa (p. 266 f.), but they did not mature. In three places, however, danger and even disaster threatened: in Britain, in Armenia and in Judaea.

While the new province of south-east Britain continued to develop peacefully, its frontiers were still threatened by the tribes beyond. The Silures had to be checked by Ostorius and by his successor A. Didius (52–7); the latter also had to intervene in Brigantia in order to re-instate Rome’s friend Queen Cartimandua who had been deposed by her consort Venutius. The next advance was made when in 59 Suetonius Paulinus, the conqueror of
Mauretania, was sent out as governor. He decided to strike at Mona (the island of Anglesey), which formed a supply base and refuge for Rome’s enemies in Britain. It was a centre of the Druids, who since Claudius’ proscription of their cult must have been Rome’s bitter foes. The discovery of the great hoard of objects at Llyn Cerrig Bach, which were thrown into a lake at this time either by the Druids to save them or to appease their gods or by the avenging Romans, demonstrates, through the variety and source of these objects, from how wide an area in Britain the Druids could claim offerings or seize booty. This dramatic illustration of the power of the Druid community helps to explain the purpose of Paulinus.
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In 61, though his troops at first wavered in face of the defenders backed by their priests and supposed supernatural powers, he forced the Menai Strait. Then while he was busy felling the sacred groves and settling the island, news came of the revolt of Boudicca in the south.

In East Anglia the Iceni were suffering from the exactions of Roman tax-collectors, such as the procurator Catus Decianus, and from Roman moneylenders who included the financier Seneca. In 60/61 their king Prasutagus died, leaving half his wealth to Nero and half to his two daughters. He had no son, and Roman experience with Cartimandua may have suggested that it might be wiser not to recognize his widow Boudicca (Boadicea), but to absorb the area into the Roman province. When Roman officials began to seize for the emperor land which Claudius had granted to tribal nobles and when finally Boudicca was scourged and her daughters were violated, the whole tribe rose in revolt. The Iceni were joined by the neighbouring Trinovantes who were smarting from both the confiscation of some of their land for the Roman colonists settled at Camulodunum and from the cost of the upkeep of Claudius’ temple and cult, which was a symbol of their subjection, the hated ‘arx aeternae dominationis’.

The first move was against Camulodunum: it was unwalled, and the nearest Roman legions were over a hundred miles away. In two days it was overwhelmed and all Roman survivors, men, women and children were butchered. The Ninth Legion, hastening to the rescue from Lindum, was defeated; only its commander Petilius Cerialis and the cavalry escaped. Meantime Suetonius Paulinus decided to hasten to London ahead of his main troops. But when neither his own legions nor the Second Legion which he had summoned from the south-west arrived, he was forced to abandon both London and Verulamium to Boudicca’s fury: 70,000 people are said to have perished in the sack of the three towns. Withdrawing along Watling Street, Suetonius finally decided to fight although he found that the commander of the Second had disobeyed orders and was not coming. Although heavily outnumbered, he fought on ground of his own choosing, perhaps not far from Lichfield; Boudicca and her forces were utterly routed thanks to superior Roman discipline; she took poison. Suetonius then began to take savage reprisals, but the
new procurator, Iulius Classicianus, who could report direct to the emperor, urged that Suetonius should be checked and a more lenient policy be adopted.
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After a commission had reported, Nero decided to send out a new governor, C. Petronius Turpillianus who was more conciliatory, and Britain settled down to a period of peace so that in 67 Nero was able to withdraw one of the legions, the Fourteenth, for service in the East.

When news reached Nero near the beginning of his reign that the Parthian king Vologeses had established his own brother Tiridates on the throne of Armenia (p. 251)
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Nero prepared for action. Cn. Domitius Corbulo, who had shown his ability on the Lower Rhine under Claudius, was appointed to Cappadocia and Galatia and was empowered to take over two legions and auxiliaries from the governor of Syria. But troops stationed in Syria tended to become slack (p. 210) and Corbulo, a stern disciplinarian, had first to toughen up his men (A.D. 55): he was given the chance because Vologeses was embarrassed by a rebel son and by a revolt in Hyrcania. After wintering (57/8) in northern Armenia amid snow and ice (Armenia is a land of great climatic extremes), Corbulo advanced against Tiridates who refused terms; he then captured the Armenian capital, Artaxata (probably 58). As Tiridates had fled, Corbulo in 59 marched 300 miles south-west to capture Tigranocerta. This victory, as the previous one, was celebrated by Nero being saluted as
imperator
. After a vain attempt by Tiridates to get back to Armenia, the Roman government decided to establish a Romanized prince on the Armenian throne and chose a certain Tigranes, a great-grandson of Herod the Great and of the former Cappadocian king Archelaus. After this settlement, which did not please the Armenians, Corbulo retired to Syria, of which he was appointed governor.

Tigranes, however, soon provoked Parthia by attacking Adiabene; Corbulo, who feared a Parthian attack on Syria, could only spare two legions to help Tigranes and urged Nero to send out a separate commander to aid Armenia. Nero chose one of the consuls of 61, L. Caesennius Paetus who arrived in Cappadocia in 62. It is usually supposed from the boastful words that Tacitus put in Paetus’ mouth that this move represents a change in imperial policy and that Nero had determined to annex Armenia at last: it is just possible, however, that Paetus was only instructed to defend Armenia. But whatever his purpose, he proved incompetent. In an advance towards Tigranocerta, he encamped at Rhandeia for the winter. When the Parthian army appeared he sent for help to Corbulo who did not hurry, perhaps because he thought that Paetus’ forces were sufficient to withstand any attack on their camp. Paetus, however, panicked and surrendered to the Parthians when Corbulo was less than fifty miles away. Rhandeia was not so serious a loss as Carrhae, but the disgrace was even greater: cowardice had combined with incompetence. Corbulo then reached an agreement with the Parthians that he would
withdraw west of the Euphrates, if they would withdraw from Armenia. When negotiations for a final settlement were protracted, Rome decided on a great show of force. Paetus had been recalled and Corbulo was entrusted with a
maius imperium
over all the Roman forces in the East. After he had demonstrated beyond the Euphrates he agreed to meet the Parthians at Rhandeia. Here a final settlement was negotiated: Rome agreed to recognize the Parthian Tiridates as king of Armenia, and he in turn agreed to go to Rome to receive his diadem from Nero. This coronation ceremony was held with great splendour in 66. Thus friendly relations were established between Rome and the two eastern kingdoms which, helped by some readjustments made later by Vespasian, lasted half a century. In Armenia Artaxata was, temporarily, renamed Neroneia, while in Rome the temple of Janus was closed and the coinage that advertised the fact
urbi et orbi
proclaimed ‘pace populi Romani terra marique parta Ianum clausit’.

The incorporation of eastern Pontus into the province of Galatia, which has already been mentioned, was occasioned by the retirement, nominally voluntary, of the King Polemo II. At the same time Rome took over the royal fleet and kept a squadron of some forty ships, based on Trapezus, on patrol in the Black Sea. Nero also planned an expedition in the Caucasus area towards the Caspian Sea, perhaps a drive to hold back Sarmatian tribes (the Alani) from advancing to the Danube or to occupy the country of the Iberians in the Caucasus, thus following in Pompey’s footsteps. But these further plans to strengthen Rome’s hold in the East were not carried out.
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Nero also had some plans for Africa, though their exact nature is uncertain. In 61–3 a detachment of praetorian soldiers was sent up the Nile past Meroe to the marshes of the White Nile. This was perhaps a scientific expedition, designed to discover the source of the Nile, or it may have been a reconnaissance for a campaign against the king of Axum (Abyssinia). In any case no Ethiopian war ensued: on military and probably on economic grounds it was unnecessary, though a victory in such distant and mysterious lands might have appealed to Nero’s vanity.
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The great revolt that flared up in Palestine in 66 was the result of old grievances and protracted disturbances. It was not a happy land. It suffered from internal stresses, both economic and religious: there was tension between rich and poor, between Sadducee and Pharisee, between Jew and Samaritan, between Jew and non-Jew, especially Greek, and between Jew and Christian. Little wonder that some men had turned to a less complicated life like that of the Essenes and, a landmark in history, established the monastic community at Qumran on the Dead Sea, whose scriptures now partially survive, the famous Dead Sea Scrolls.
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Above all, there was a common hatred of Rome, although this was moderated among the upper class which looked to Rome to protect its interests. This sentiment naturally was nationalistic in
aim and sought to throw off the yoke of the unclean and idolatrous Gentile. Feelings were often further aggravated by Roman lack of tact, since Roman policy towards the Jews in general had tended to fluctuate between great generosity or undue harshness (see pp. 121, 211, 234, 241, 247). True, there had been no religious persecution as such, and the Jews had been granted freedom of worship and association. The mad folly of Gaius had been counteracted by Claudius’ re-establishment of a native ruler, but the reversion to provincial status after Agrippa’s brief rule (41–44) will have re-emphasized Judaea’s dependence on Rome. His son, Agrippa II, was well treated by Rome: in 50 he was given Chalcis, the kingdom of his uncle Herod who had died (p. 251), and in 53 he received in exchange for Chalcis, Philip’s tetrarchy (Trachonitis, Gaulanitis, etc.) and that of Lysanias (Abilene), to which Nero added part of Galilee and Peraea.

The Roman procurators obviously had no easy task with so recalcitrant a people, but they were too often incompetent. Cuspius Fadus in 44 had killed a prophet and agitator named Theudas; his successor, Tiberius Alexander, was a renegade Jew;
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and his successor, Ventidius Cumanus (48–52), crushed some fighting between Jews and Samaritans with such rigour that he himself was later court-martialled and exiled. The next procurator was Antonius Felix (52–60), brother of the freedman Pallas and husband of a Jewess Drusilla, the sister of Agrippa II. He had to face increasing social unrest, from bands of fanatical robbers (Sicarii or ‘Men of the Knife’) who plundered the rich and pro-Romans, and also from a violent group of Zealots, led by Eleazar, son of the High Priest. He had to deal with rioting between Greeks and Jews in Caesarea and it was he who tried St. Paul whom he kept in confinement as he judged that release would be politically dangerous. Like other governors, he had only some 3000 local troops at his disposal, although in grave difficulty he could appeal to the governor of Syria for legionary help. The next governor, Porcius Festus (60–2), was relieved of the problem of St. Paul when the latter ‘appealed to Caesar’, but he had other difficulties. When Festus died and before his successor Albinus arrived, the Sadducee High Priest took the chance to crush some opponents, including James, the brother of Jesus, who was stoned to death. Finally, under Gessius Florus (64–6) the storm broke.

The immediate cause was some rioting at Caesarea and in Jerusalem where the High Priest refused to sacrifice to Jehovah on behalf of the emperor and where, despite the intervention of Agrippa, the small Roman garrison was massacred. Faced with a spread of disorder, Florus called in the legate of Syria who arrived with some 30,000 men but winter was approaching and he dared not assault Jerusalem but withdrew (66). As the rebellion was extending to the whole of Palestine, Nero appointed a new governor of Syria, C. Licinius Mucianus, and put a tried soldier, T. Flavius Vespasianus, in command of the expedition against Judaea. Vespasian’s plan was to use his three legions
to reduce Palestine district by district and thus isolate Jerusalem before the final attack. In 67 he reduced Galilee which was defended by Josephus, a philo-Roman Pharisee who managed to survive and to pass over to the winning side: he gained pardon and friendship from Vespasian, whose elevation to the throne he prophesied. In 68 Vespasian reduced Samaria and Idumaea, but when news came of the death of Nero he slowed down operations. During all this time Palestine had been far from united in its opposition to the Romans and there had been much fighting between Jews and Gentiles, while Jerusalem became the scene of bitter fighting between three Jewish factions. Thus when Vespasian went off to seek the Principate and left his son Titus to conduct the final siege of Jerusalem, Titus invested a city divided against itself. Nevertheless the resistance was fanatically heroic, but in August 70 the city fell and was sacked. The sequel is soon told. The temple was destroyed, the Sanhedrin and High Priesthood were abolished, the annual contribution paid by every pious Jew to the temple was diverted to Juppiter Capitolinus. The Jewish State ceased to exist as a political entity, but Judaism as a religion continued and was even protected as in the past, its followers being allowed their Sabbath, freedom from military service and exemption from the Imperial cult. Judaea remained a Roman province but the equestrian procurator now became the subordinate to a senatorial legate who commanded the Tenth Legion which henceforth garrisoned Jerusalem. When after the reign and death of Titus (81) a commemorative arch was erected in his honour, all Rome was reminded by its sculptures of the end of Jerusalem.
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