The Great Fire of Rome: The Fall of the Emperor Nero and His City (21 page)

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Authors: Stephen Dando-Collins

Tags: #History, #Ancient, #Rome

BOOK: The Great Fire of Rome: The Fall of the Emperor Nero and His City
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Access to the emperor would be relatively easy at the Circus Flaminius, and the plotters agreed that the consul-designate, Plautius Lateranus, one of the first members of the conspiracy, would approach Nero in the circus tribunal, the official box. Lateranus, a large, physically powerful man with plenty of nerve, would throw himself at Nero’s knees, in the posture of a supplicant, seemingly to beg some favor. Lateranus would then grab Nero’s legs and drag him from his chair, pressing him to the ground. The Praetorian tribunes and centurions who were party to the plot would then rush up and hold back Nero’s bodyguards while the first lethal blow was struck.
 
The honor of that first blow was claimed by the senator Flavius Scaevinus. Since the birth of the conspiracy, Scaevinus had been secretly wearing beneath his clothes a sacred dagger that he had taken from the Temple of Fortune in his Etrurian hometown of Ferentum, modern Ferento, in central Italy. Ferentum was also the hometown of Marcus Otho, the governor of Lusitania whose wife, Poppaea Sabina, Nero had stolen. No classical author could attribute a reason to Scaevinus’ participation in the plot to kill Nero, but it is possible that he was a close friend and client of Otho and that he wanted to avenge his friend’s humiliation and loss. Or, more likely, the heavily indebted Scaevinus was hopeful that Otho would handsomely reward him for the murder and relieve him of his financial problems. According to the plan now agreed on by the plotters, once Scaevinus had struck, the Praetorian officers and other conspirators would do the same.
 
This plan was put to Piso, who approved it. Pledging himself to marry Antonia, daughter of Claudius, and to accept the throne when it was offered, Piso said that on the day of the assassination, he would go to the Temple of Ceres and await word that Nero was dead. Praetorian Prefect Faenius Rufus could then summon Piso to the Praetorian barracks, at the same time sending an escort to bring Antonia to the barracks. In front of the assembled Praetorian Cohorts, Piso would be presented to the troops as their new emperor and be hailed by them.
 
The Temple of Ceres stood on the slopes of the Aventine Hill. Like every other structure on the hill, the temple had been seriously damaged during the previous year’s fire, just as it had been in a 31 BC blaze. With the temples of Rome receiving first priority in the rebuilding process, and with Ceres being one of the four deities that the Sibylline reading had identified as requiring special attention, the almost six-hundred-year-old Temple of Ceres would have been quickly restored as part of Nero’s reconstruction program.
 
In going to the temple on the assassination day, Piso would be unlikely to arouse any unusual interest or suspicion from anyone who saw him. But Piso had an ulterior motive for choosing this place, of all places, to spend the time awaiting news of the murder of his emperor. The Temple of Ceres was the headquarters of the plebeian aediles and was also legally a place of sanctuary. No person claiming the protection of the goddess while in the precincts of her temple could be arrested. This was Piso’s insurance policy, for he was wracked with doubts and fears about the fate of the plot. If all went awry, Piso at least could hope to escape arrest and execution, by claiming the protection of the sanctuary.
 
Infected with this fear of failure, the plot to assassinate Nero Caesar went forward.
 
Before dawn on April 18, Flavius Scaevinus, the conspirator who had claimed the honor of striking the first blow against Nero, did the rounds of his patrons, then called on Antonius Natalis, the conspiratorial ring’s principal go-between. After sending away the servants, the pair spent a long time discussing the arrangements for the assassination they intended carrying out the following day. Only when he was convinced that every detail had been covered did Scaevinus go home to make his own final preparations.
 
Methodically, Scaevinus tidied up his affairs. Taking out his last will and testament, he read it, assured himself that it contained all that it should, then closed it with his seal. After handing the sealed will to Milichus, his chief freedman, for safekeeping, Scaevinus reached beneath his tunic and brought into the light of day the sheathed dagger that had been suspended around his neck for weeks. For the first time since he had taken it from the Temple of Fortune, Scaevinus slid the ancient dagger from its sheath. A scowl came over his face, as he saw that the blade was blunted by rust. This was the blade that he intended plunging into the heart of Nero at the races next day, and he wanted it to enter the tyrant’s flesh with ease.
 
Handing the dagger to Milichus, he said, “Sharpen it on a whetstone, to a keen and bright point.”
7
 
“Yes, master.” Milichus took charge of the dagger.
 
Scaevinus ordered an extravagant banquet for the evening. His staff noted that he was that day “depressed, and evidently in profound thought” as he went about his usual bathhouse routine. That night, he sat down for his grand meal as if it were to be his last. Over dinner, he called in his favorite slaves and announced that he was manumitting them—granting their freedom. He gave money to several others. These were usually the acts of a dying man. Having astonished his staff, Scaevinus kept up an apparently merry conversation with those family members who reclined around the dining table with him. The last thing he did before retiring to bed was to instruct Milichus to prepare bandages for the next day, as if he were expecting to be wounded.
 
Milichus, Scaevinus’ chief freedman, was troubled by all this. That night, as he lay in bed with his wife, Milichus told her all about the master’s uncharacteristic behavior and demeanor that day. He showed her the knife from the Temple of Fortune that he was supposed to sharpen. Like Milichus, his wife suspected that Scaevinus was up to something. Both observed that the day was widely considered inauspicious for the sealing of wills. And they knew that their master was planning to attend the games the next day, even though he was not a particular fan of chariot racing. Both knew that their master planned to sit close to the emperor. And then there was this knife. Milichus’ wife put two and two together.
 
Once Milichus’ wife shared with him her suspicion that Scaevinus was planning to kill the emperor, his first reaction was to hold his tongue, to serve and protect his master, no matter what. His wife scolded him, pointing out that a number of others, both slaves and freedmen, had that day seen exactly what Milichus had seen, had heard what he had heard. She reminded her husband that his silence would be meaningless if others spoke up and warned the emperor; in fact, it would count against him. But if Milichus were the first to speak up, the rewards from the emperor for his information would be his and his alone.
 
Sunrise the next day, April 19, found Milichus and his wife outside the gates to the Servilian Gardens, west of the Tiber River, where the emperor was known to be residing while the construction work continued on his grand new palace. The tall wooden gates to the gardens were closed, so Milichus rapped on them, calling for the gatekeepers to let him in.
 
“I am the bearer of important and alarming news!” he yelled.
8
 
The gatekeepers ignored him, so Milichus continued to bash on the doors and to shout the same message, with increasing desperation. Finally, his persistence paid dividends; the gates were opened, and the gatekeepers warily looked him up and down. After Milichus again repeated the same declaration, he and his wife were escorted to the sprawling villa in the gardens, which overlooked the river. They were brought before Epaphroditus, secretary
a libellis
, or secretary of petitions, whose job it was to receive and deal with approaches to the Palatium by Nero’s subjects.
 
Across Epaphroditus’ desk came everything from applications and recommendations for Roman citizenship to legal appeals from citizens convicted of a crime to approaches to the emperor from foreign envoys. With thousands of such applications to deal with, it was no wonder that the three Jewish priests that Joseph bar Matthias had been sent to Rome to free had been waiting now for four years for their cases to be heard. Tacitus would not have a good word to say about Epaphroditus, but Joseph, who came to know Epaphroditus well, would describe him as “a lover of all kinds of learning.” In Joseph’s estimation, Epaphroditus showed “a wonderful rigor and an excellent nature,” and was above all a virtuous man.
9
 
Now, the learned Epaphroditus listened as Milichus gushed out his story of an oddly behaving master, a knife, and that very day’s circus games. Once Epaphroditus had learned of the suspicious behavior of Milichus’ employer, he led the freedman and his wife to Nero himself. Milichus repeated his story for the twenty-seven-year-old emperor’s benefit, warned him of the danger that he felt certain Nero was in, and handed him the dagger from the Temple of Fortune that he had been ordered to sharpen. As Nero turned over the dagger in his hands, Milichus urged him to summon Scaevinus to answer his charges against him.
 
Before long, a centurion-led party of armed Praetorian soldiers pushed roughly past Scaevinus’ doormen, strode into his house, and placed Scaevinus under arrest. Surrounded by a grim-faced guard, Scaevinus was escorted through the city (which was now one giant building site) and across a Tiber River bridge to the Servilian Gardens and brought before the emperor. To Scaevinus’ horror, Milichus and his wife were with Nero. The emperor held up the dagger, which would have carried an inscription relating to the goddess to whom it was dedicated, and asked Scaevinus to explain how he had come by it.
 
“That dagger has long been regarded by my ancestors with a religious sentiment,” Scaevinus replied, appearing angry, not afraid. “It has been kept in my chamber, and was stolen by my freedman, using trickery.” To accent his accusation, he glared at Milichus.
10
 
Nero then asked Scaevinus why he had signed his will on an inauspicious day, and why he had given money and freedom to his slaves.
 
“I have often signed my will without taking into account the observance of specific days,” Scaevinus replied. “I have previously made gifts of money and freedom to some of my slaves. On this occasion, I gave more freely because, as my means are now impoverished and my creditors are pressing me, I distrusted the validity of my will.”
11
 
Was Scaevinus truly in financial trouble? As far as the emperor knew, Scaevinus’ table was always covered with the best silverware, and his lifestyle was and always had been a luxurious one. Scaevinus shrugged and said he could not doubt that his harsher critics would not approve of his expenditure in the financial circumstances in which he currently found himself.
 
The question about the preparation of bandages was not one that Scaevinus could be expected to answer easily. But instead of defending the accusation with some trifling excuse, Scaevinus went on the offensive. He claimed that no bandages had been prepared on his orders. “This, and all the man’s other charges are absurd!” He added that if anyone was preparing to murder Caesar, it was Milichus. Turning on the freedman, Scaevinus fearlessly denounced him: “Infamous and depraved wretch!”
12
 
Nero looked at the accused, at his accuser, and at Epaphroditus, unsure as to what to do. It appeared as if the accusations against Scaevinus, unsupported as they were by any evidence or corroborating testimony, were going to come to nothing. As Nero was about to dismiss the accused man, an outcome that would have given Scaevinus an opportunity to have Milichus charged with making false accusations, Milichus’ wife spoke up. To this point, she had held her tongue, but now she reminded Milichus that Antonius Natalis had recently had a long conversation with Scaevinus, with all the servants told to leave the room. And, she added, Scaevinus and Natalis were both intimate friends of Gaius Piso.
 
Nero’s ears pricked up. “Piso, you say?”
 
Nero had never forgotten the unproven charge against Piso and his friend Seneca three years earlier. Nero feared Seneca more than he feared Piso; that Piso might be embroiled in this case could also suggest that Seneca was involved and that he might even be orchestrating a plot against the emperor. Nero, with his suspicions heightened, ordered Antonius Natalis brought in for questioning, then asked Scaevinus what his furtive conversation with Natalis had been about.

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