CHAPTER 11
The Fall of Agrippina

*

THE first casualty of the new reign was the governor of Asia, Marcus Junius Silanus (II). His death was treacherously contrived by Agrippina, without Nero’s knowledge. It was not provoked by any ferocity of temper. Silanus was lazy, and previous rulers had despised him –Gaius used to call him ‘the Golden Sheep’.¹ But Agrippina was afraid he would avenge her murder of his brother, Lucius Junius Silanus Torquatus (I). Popular gossip, too, widely suggested that Nero, still almost a boy and emperor only by a crime, was less eligible for the throne than a mature, blameless aristocrat who was, like himself, descended from the Caesars. For Silanus was a great-great-grandson of the divine Augustus – and this still counted. So he was murdered. The act was done by a knight, Publius Celer, and a former slave, Helius, the emperor’s agents in Asia. Without the precautions necessary to maintain secrecy, they administered poison to the governor at dinner.

Equally hurried was the death of Claudius’ ex-slave Narcissus. I have described his feud with Agrippina. Imprisoned and harshly treated, the threat of imminent execution drove him to suicide. The emperor, however, was sorry: Narcissus’ greed and extravagance harmonized admirably with his own still latent vices.

Other murders were meant to follow. But the emperor’s tutors, Sextus Afranius Burrus and Lucius Annaeus Seneca, prevented them. These two men, with a unanimity rare among partners in power, were, by different methods, equally influential. Burrus’ strength lay in soldierly efficiency and seriousness of character, Seneca’s in amiable high principles and his tuition of Nero in public speaking. They collaborated in controlling the emperor’s perilous adolescence; their policy was to direct his deviations from virtue into licensed channels of indulgence. Agrippina’s violence, inflamed by all the passions of ill-gotten tyranny, encountered their united opposition.

She, however, was supported by Pallas, who had ruined Claudius by instigating his incestuous marriage and disastrous adoption. But Nero was not disposed to obey slaves. Pallas’ surly arrogance, anomalous in a man of servile origin, disgusted him. Nevertheless, publicly, Agrippina received honour after honour. When the escort-commander made the customary request for a password, Nero gave: ‘The best of mothers.’ The senate voted her two official attendants and the Priesthood of Claudius.

For Claudius was declared a god. A public funeral was to come first. On the day of the funeral the emperor pronounced his predecessor’s praises. While he recounted the consulships and Triumphs of the dead man’s ancestors, he and his audience were serious. References to Claudius’ literary accomplishments too, and to the absence of disasters in the field during his reign, were favourably received. But when Nero began to talk of his stepfather’s foresight and wisdom, nobody could help laughing.

Yet the speech, composed by Seneca, was highly polished – a good example of his pleasant talent, which admirably suited contemporary taste. Older men, who spent their leisure in making comparisons with the past, noted that Nero was the first ruler to need borrowed eloquence. The dictator Julius Caesar had rivalled the greatest orators. Augustus spoke with imperial fluency and spontaneity. Tiberius was a master at weighing out his words – he could express his thoughts forcibly, or he could be deliberately obscure. Even Gaius’ mental disorders had not weakened his vigorous speech; Claudius’ oratory, too, was graceful enough, provided it was prepared. But from early boyhood Nero’s mind, though lively, directed itself to other things – carving, painting, singing, and riding. Sometimes, too, he wrote verses, and thereby showed he possessed the rudiments of culture.

Sorrow duly counterfeited, Nero attended the senate and acknowledged its support and the army’s backing. Then he spoke of his advisers, and of the examples of good rulers before his eyes. ‘Besides, I bring with me no feud, no resentment or vindictiveness,’ he asserted. ‘No civil war, no family quarrels, clouded my early years.’ Then, outlining his future policy, he renounced everything that had occasioned recent unpopularity. ‘I will not judge every kind of case myself’, he said, ‘and give too free rein to the influence of a few individuals by hearing prosecutors and defendants behind my closed doors. From my house, bribery and favouritism will be excluded. I will keep personal and State affairs separate. The senate is to preserve its ancient functions. By applying to the consuls, people from Italy and the senatorial provinces may have access to its tribunals. I myself will look after the armies under my control.’

Moreover, these promises were implemented. The senate decided many matters. They forbade advocates to receive fees or gifts. They excused quaestors-designate from the obligation to hold gladiatorial displays. Agrippina objected to this as a reversal of Claudius’ legislation. Yet it was carried – although the meeting was convened in the Palatine, and a door built at the back so that she could stand behind a curtain unseen, and listen. Again, when an Armenian delegation was pleading before Nero, she was just going to mount the emperor’s dais and sit beside him. Everyone was stupefied. But Seneca instructed Nero to advance and meet his mother. This show of filial dutifulness averted the scandal.

At the end of the year there were disturbing rumours that the Parthians had broken out and were plundering Armenia – Radamistus, who had so often seized control of that country and been ejected, had again given up the struggle. So in Rome, where gossip thrives, people asked how an emperor who was only just seventeen could endure or repel the shock. A youth under feminine control was not reassuring. Wars, with their battles and sieges, could not be managed by tutors.

However, there was also a contrary view, which regarded it as better than if the responsibilities of command had fallen to the lazy old Claudius, who would have been ordered about by his slaves. Burrus and Seneca, it was recalled, were known to be highly experienced men, and Nero was nearly grown up; Pompey had conducted a civil war at seventeen, and the future Augustus at nineteen. ‘At the top’, said supporters of this opinion, ‘command and planning count more than weapon-wielding and physique. We shall see whether his advisers are good or bad if he appoints the best man as commander, ignoring that man’s jealous critics and pressure, from wealthy or influential rivals.’

While this was the talk, Nero commanded the eastern divisions to be raised to full strength by drafts from the adjacent provinces, and to proceed towards Armenia. Two dependent kings, namely Agrippa II and Antiochus Epiphanes IV (of Commagene), were instructed to prepare an army to invade Parthia, and orders were given that the Euphrates should be bridged. Lesser Armenia and Sophene were given to Aristobulus and Sohaemus, with royal status. Opportunely, there was a revolt against Vologeses led by a son of Vardanes I; and the Parthians evacuated Armenia. Their intention was to fight later. But the senators performed exaggerated celebrations, proposing days of thanksgiving on which the emperor should wear the triumphal robe, enter the city in ovation, and have his statue in the temple of Mars the Avenger – of the same size as the go’s. Besides habitual sycophancy there was satisfaction because the man appointed to secure Armenia was Cnaeus Domitius Corbulo (II) – a sign that promotions were to be by merit.

The disposition of the eastern armies was as follows. Two brigades¹ with part of the auxiliaries were to remain in the province of Syria under its imperial governor, Gaius Ummidius Durmius Quadratus. Corbulo was to have a combined regular and auxiliary force of the same size, with the addition of the auxiliary infantry and cavalry wintering in Cappadocia. The allied kings were instructed to serve wherever hostilities required; their inclination was to follow Corbulo. He, to follow up his prestige – a vital matter in new undertakings – rapidly proceeded to Cilicia. Quadratus came there to meet him at Aegeae, so that Corbulo should not enter Syria to take over his army, thus becoming the focus of attention. Corbulo’s appearance was impressive, and so was his oratory – superficial advantages matching his experience and ability.

Both commanders sent messengers advising Vologeses to choose peace not war, and to demonstrate, by giving hostages, the respect his predecessors had been accustomed to show for Rome. Vologeses duly handed over leading Parthian royalties. He wanted to select his own time for hostilities. Perhaps, too, he wanted, under the guise of hostages, to eliminate suspected rivals. The hostages were received by Insteius Capito, a junior Roman staff officer, who chanced to have been sent by Quadratus to see Vologeses concerning some previous matter. Corbulo, hearing this, ordered a battalion commander, Arrius Varus, to go and take over the hostages. This caused an altercation between the two envoys.

To cut short this exhibition before foreigners, the officers left the decision to the hostages themselves and their escorts. They chose Corbulo on account of his freshly won reputation (indeed, he was popular even among enemies). So the two generals quarrelled. Quadratus declared himself robbed of the fruits of his own negotiations. Corbulo asserted that the Parthian decision to give hostages had been subsequent to his own appointment to conduct the war – which had converted the king’s optimism into alarm. To terminate the dispute Nero had it announced that the imperial fasces should be wreathed with laurel ‘owing to the successes of Quadratus and Corbulo’. (I have here described events extending into the next year.)

In the same year the emperor requested the senate to authorize statues of his late father Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and his guardian Asconius Labeo. He declined an offer to erect statues of himself in solid gold or silver. The senate had decreed that future years should begin in December, the month of his birth. But he retained the old religious custom of starting the year on January 1st. He refused to allow the prosecution of a Roman knight, Julius Densus, for favouring Britannicus – or of a junior senator, Carrinas Celer, who was accused by a slave. Consul in the next year, Nero exempted his colleague Lucius Antistius Vetus from swearing allegiance, like the other officials, to the emperor’s acts. The senate praised this vigorously; they hoped that if his youthful heart were elated by popularity for minor good deeds he might turn to greater ones. Then he showed leniency by readmitting to the senate Plautius Lateranus, who had been expelled for adultery with Messalina. Nero pledged himself to clemency in numerous speeches; Seneca put them into his mouth, to display his own talent or demonstrate his high-minded guidance.

Agrippina was gradually losing control over Nero. He fell in love with a former slave Acte. His confidants were two fashionable young men, Marcus Salvius Otho,¹ whose father had been consul, and Claudius Senecio, son of a former imperial slave. Nero’s secret, surreptitious, sensual meetings with Acte established her ascendancy. When Nero’s mother finally discovered, her opposition was fruitless. Even his older friends were not displeased to see his appetites satisfied by a common girl with no grudges. Destiny, or the greater attraction of forbidden pleasures, had alienated him from his aristocratic and virtuous wife Octavia, and it was feared that prohibition of his affair with Acte might result in seductions of noblewomen instead.

Agrippina, however, displayed feminine rage at having an ex-slave as her rival and a servant girl as her daughter-in-law, and so on. She refused to wait until her son regretted the association, or tired of it. But her violent scoldings only intensified his affection for Acte. In the end, deeply in love, he became openly disobedient to his mother and turned to Seneca – one of whose intimates, Annaeus Serenus, had screened the first stages of the liaison by lending his own name as the ostensible donor of the presents which Nero secretly gave Acte. Agrippina now changed her tactics, and indulgently offered the privacy of her own bedroom for the relaxations natural to Nero’s age and position. She admitted that her strictness had been untimely, and placed her resources – which were not much smaller than his own – at his disposal. This change from excessive severity to extravagant complaisance did not deceive Nero – and it alarmed his friends, who urged him to beware of the tricks of this always terrible and now insincere woman.

One day Nero was looking at the robes worn by the resplendent wives and mothers of former emperors. Picking out a jewelled garment, he sent it as a present to his mother – a generous, spontaneous gift of a greatly coveted object. But Agrippina, instead of regarding this as an addition to her wardrobe, declared that her son was doling out to her a mere fraction of what he owed her – all else but this one thing was kept from her. Some put a sinister construction on her words.

Nero, exasperated with the partisans of this female conceit, deposed Pallas from the position from which, since his appointment by Claudius, he had virtually controlled the empire. As the ex-slave left the palace with a great crowd of followers, the emperor penetratingly commented ‘Pallas is going to swear himself out of his state functions’.¹ In fact, Pallas had substituted for that customary oath of high officials a stipulation that there should be no investigations of his past conduct, and that his account with the State should be regarded as balanced.

Agrippina was alarmed; her talk became angry and menacing. She let the emperor hear her say that Britannicus was grown up and was the true and worthy heir of his father’s supreme position – now held, she added, by an adopted intruder, who used it to maltreat his mother. Unshrinkingly she disclosed every blot on that ill-fated family, without sparing her own marriage and her poisoning of her husband. ‘But heaven and myself are to be thanked’, she added, ‘that my stepson is alive! I will take him to the Guards’ camp. Let them listen to Germanicus’ daughter pitted against the men who claim to rule the whole human race – the cripple Burrus with his maimed hand, and Seneca, that deportee with the professorial voice!’ Gesticulating, shouting abuse, she invoked the deified Claudius, the spirits of the Silani below – and all her own unavailing crimes.

This worried Nero. As the day of Britannicus’ fourteenth birthday¹ approached, he pondered on his mother’s violent behaviour – also on Britannicus’ character, lately revealed by a small indication which had gained him wide popularity. During the amusements of the Saturnalia the young men had thrown dice for who should be king, and Nero had won. To the others he gave various orders causing no embarrassment. But he commanded Britannicus to get up and come into the middle and sing a song. Nero hoped for laughter at the boy’s expense, since Britannicus was not accustomed even to sober parties, much less to drunken ones. But Britannicus composedly sang a poem implying his displacement from his father’s home and throne. This aroused sympathy – and in the frank atmosphere of a nocturnal party, it was unconcealed. Nero noticed the feeling against himself, and hated Britannicus all the more.

Though upset by Agrippina’s threats, he could not find a charge against his stepbrother or order his execution openly. Instead, he decided to act secretly – and ordered poison to be prepared. Arrangements were entrusted to a colonel of the Guard, Julius Pollio, who was in charge of the notorious convicted poisoner Locusta. It had earlier been ensured that Britannicus’ attendants should be unscrupulous and disloyal. His tutors first administered the poison. But it was evacuated, being either too weak or too diluted for prompt effectiveness. Impatient at the slowness of the murder, Nero browbeat the colonel and ordered Locusta to be tortured. They thought of nothing but public opinion, he complained; they safeguarded themselves and regarded his security as a secondary consideration. Then they swore that they would produce effects as rapid as any sword-stroke; and in a room adjoining Nero’s bedroom, from well-tried poisons, they concocted a mixture.

It was the custom for young imperial princes to eat with other noblemen’s children of the same age at a special, less luxurious table, before the eyes of their relations: that is where Britannicus dined. A selected servant habitually tasted his food and drink. But the murderers thought of a way of leaving this custom intact without giving themselves away by a double death. Britannicus was handed a harmless drink. The taster had tasted it; but Britannicus found it too hot, and refused it. Then cold water containing the poison was added. Speechless, his whole body convulsed, he instantly ceased to breathe.

His companions were horrified. Some, uncomprehending, fled. Others, understanding better, remained rooted in their places, staring at Nero. He still lay back unconcernedly – and he remarked that this often happened to epileptics; that Britannicus had been one since infancy; soon his sight and consciousness would return. Agrippina tried to control her features. But their evident consternation and terror showed that, like Britannicus’ sister Octavia, she knew nothing. Agrippina realized that her last support was gone. And here was Nero murdering a relation. But Octavia, young though she was, had learnt to hide sorrow, affection, every feeling. After a short silence the banquet continued.

Britannicus was cremated the night he died. Indeed, preparations for his inexpensive funeral had already been made. As his remains were placed in the Field of Mars,¹ there erupted a violent storm. It was widely believed that the gods were showing their fury at the boy’s murder – though even his fellow-men generally condoned it, arguing that brothers were traditional enemies and that the empire was indivisible. A number of contemporary writers assert that for a considerable time previously Nero had corrupted his victim. If so, his death might have seemed to come none too soon, and be the lesser outrage of the two.

Such was this hurried murder of the last of the Claudians, physically defiled, then poisoned right among the religious emblems on the table, before his enemy’s eyes – without time even to give his sister a farewell kiss. Nero justified the hasty funeral by an edict recalling the traditional custom of withdrawing untimely deaths from the public gaze and not dwelling on them with eulogies and processions. Now that he had lost his brother’s help, he added, all his hopes were centred on his country; senate and people must give all the greater support to their emperor, the only remaining member of his family, exalted by destiny. Then he distributed lavish gifts to his closest friends. Some were shocked when, at such a juncture, men of ethical pretensions accepted his distribution of town and country mansions like loot. Others thought they had no choice since the emperor, with his guilty conscience, hoped for impunity if he could bind everyone of importance to himself by generous presents.

However, no generosity could mollify his mother. She became Octavia’s supporter. Constantly meeting her own friends in secret, Agrippina outdid even her natural greed in grasping funds from all quarters to back her designs. She was gracious to officers, and attentive to such able and high-ranking noblemen as survived. She seemed to be looking round for a Party, and a leader for it. Learning this, Nero withdrew the military bodyguard which she had been given as empress and retained as the emperor’s mother, and also the German guardsmen by which, as an additional compliment, it had recently been strengthened. Furthermore, he terminated her great receptions, by giving her a separate residence in the mansion formely occupied by Antonia (II). When he visited her there, he would bring an escort of staff-officers, hurriedly embrace her, and leave.

Veneration of another person’s power, if it is ill-supported, is the most precarious and transient thing in the world. Agrippina’s house was immediately deserted. Her only visitors and comforters were a few women, there because they loved her – or hated her. One of them was Junia Silana, whose separation from her husband Gaius Silius (II) by Messalina I have described. Noble, beautiful, and immoral, she had long been an intimate friend of Agrippina. Recently, however, an unspoken enmity had arisen between them, because Agrippina had deterred a young nobleman, Titus Sextius Africanus, firom marrying Silana by describing her as immoral and past her prime. Agrippina did not want him for herself, but wanted to keep him from obtaining the childless Silana’s wealth.

Silana now saw her chance of revenge. She put up two of her dependants, Iturius and Calvisius, to prosecute Agrippina. They avoided the old, frequently heard charges of her mourning Britannicus’ death or proclaiming Octavia’s wrongs. Instead they accused her of inciting Rubellius Plautus to revolution. This man, through his mother, possessed the same relationship to the divine Augustus as Nero did. Agrippina, the allegation was, proposed to marry Plautus and control the empire again. Nero’s aunt Domitia – who was Agrippina’s deadly rival – had a freed slave Atimetus who heard this story from the two prosecutors and urged the ballet-dancer Paris (another of Domitia’s former slaves) to go speedily and divulge the plot to the emperor, in sensational terms.

It was late at night when Paris entered. Nero had long been drinking. This was the time Paris usually came, to enliven the emperor’s dissipations. Tonight, however, Paris wore a gloomy expression; and he told his story in detail. The emperor, listening in terror, resolved to kill his mother, to kill Plautus, and also to depose Burrus from the command of the Guard, as being a supporter and nominee of Agrippina. One historian, Fabius Rusticus, claims that Nero had actually written a letter of appointment to a proposed successor of Burrus, Gaius Caecina Tuscus, and that it was only through Seneca’s influence that Burrus retained his post. But this authority favours Seneca, whose friendship had made his career; and two others writers, Pliny the Elder and Cluvius Rufus, report no doubts of Burrus’ loyalty. (My plan is to indicate such individual sources only when they differ. When they are unanimous, I shall follow them without citation.)¹

Nero was so alarmed and eager to murder his mother that he only agreed to be patient when Burrus promised that, if she was found guilty, she should the. But Burrus pointed out that everyone must be given an opportunity for defence – especially a parent; and that at present there were no prosecutors but only the report of one man, from a household unfriendly to her. Nero should reflect, he added, that it was late and they had spent a convivial night, and that the whole story had an air of recklessness and ignorance.

This calmed the emperor’s fears. Next morning, Burrus visited Agrippina to acquaint her with the accusation and tell her she must refute it or pay the penalty. Burrus did this in Seneca’s presence; certain ex-slaves were also there as witnesses. Burrus named the charges and the accusers, and adopted a menacing air. But Agrippina displayed her old spirit. ‘Junia Silana has never had a child’, she said, ‘so I am not surprised she does not understand a mother’s feelings! For mothers change their sons less easily than loose women change their lovers. If Silana’s dependants Iturius and Calvisius, after exhausting their means, can only repay the hag’s favours by becoming accusers, is that a reason for darkening my name with my son’s murder, or loading the emperor’s conscience with mine?

‘As for Domitia, I should welcome her hostility if she were competing with me in kindness to my Nero – instead of concocting melodramas with her lover Atimetus and the dancer Paris. While I was planning Nero’s adoption and promotion to consular status and designation to the consulship, and all the other preparations for his accession, she was beautifying her fish-ponds at her beloved Baiae.

‘I defy anyone to convict me of tampering with city police or provincial loyalty, or of inciting slaves and ex-slaves to crimes. If Britannicus had become emperor could I ever have survived? If Rubellius Plautus or another gained the throne and became my judge, there would be no lack of accusers! For then I should be charged, not with occasional indiscretions – outbursts of uncontrollable love – but with crimes which no one can pardon except a son!’

Agrippina’s listeners were touched, and tried to calm her excitement. But she demanded to see her son. To him, she offered no defence, no reminder of her services. For the former might have implied misgivings, the latter reproach. Instead she secured rewards for her supporters – and revenge on her accusers. Junia Silana, on the other hand, was exiled, her dependants Iturius and Calvisius expelled, Atimetus executed. Paris played too important a part in the emperor’s debaucheries to be punished. Rubellius Plautus was left unnoticed – for the present. Publius Anteius, appointed imperial governor of Syria, was put off by various devices and finally kept in Rome. Faenius Rufus was given control of the food supply, Arruntius Stella given the Games projected by the emperor, and Tiberius Claudius Balbillus made imperial governor of Egypt.

Pallas and Burrus were charged with conspiring to give the empire to Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix, because of his great name and marriage link with Claudius, whose daughter Claudia Antonia was his wife. The accusation originated with a certain Paetus, notorious for acquiring confiscated properties from the Treasury. His story was clearly untrue. But Pallas’s innocence did not cause much satisfaction because of the disgust provoked by his arrogance. For when certain ex-slaves in his household were denounced as his accomplices, Pallas replied that all orders in his home were given by nods or waves of the hand – when more detailed instructions were required he wrote them, to avoid personal contact. Burrus, though himself among the accused, was one of the judges, and pronounced acquittal. The informer was banished, and his records unearthing forgotten debts to the Treasury were burnt.

At the end of the year the battalion of the Guard customarily present at the Games was withdrawn. The intention was to give a greater impression of freedom, to improve discipline by removing the Guardsmen from the temptations of public displays, and to test whether the public would behave respectably without their restraint.

The temples of Jupiter and Minerva were struck by lightning. The emperor consulted diviners and on their recommendation conducted a purification of the city.

The consuls for the following year were Quintus Voluaius Saturnius and Publius Cornelius Lentulus Scipio (II). The year was a time of peace abroad, but disgusting excesses by Nero in Rome. Disguised as a slave, he ranged the streets, brothels, and taverns with his friends, who pilfered goods from shops and assaulted wayfarers. Their identity was unsuspected: indeed, as marks on his face testified, Nero himself was struck. When it became known that the waylayer was the emperor, attacks on distinguished men and women multiplied. For, since disorderliness was tolerated, pseudo-Neros mobilized gangs and behaved similarly, with impunity. Rome by night came to resemble a conquered city.

A senator called Julius Montanus, who had not yet held office, assaulted by the emperor in the dark, hit back vigorously. But then Montanus recognized his assailant and apologized. However his apology was interpreted as a slur, and he was forced to commit suicide. Yet the incident diminished Nero’s boldness. In future he surrounded himself with soldiers and masses of gladiators, and these, while holding aloof from minor semi-private brawls, intervened forcibly whenever the victims showed vigorous resistance.

In the theatre, there were brawls between gangs favouring rival ballet-dancers. Nero converted these disorders into serious warfare. For he waived penalties and offered prizes – watching in person, secretly and on many occasions even openly. Finally, however, public animosities and fears of worse disturbances left no alternative but to expel these dancers from Italy and station troops in the theatre again.

About this time the senate discussed the offences of former slaves. It was demanded that patrons should be empowered to re-enslave undeserving ex-slaves. The proposal had widespread support. But the consuls did not dare to put the motion without consulting the emperor, to whom they wrote stating the senate’s view. Since his advisers, though few, were divided, Nero hesitated to give a ruling. One side denounced the disrespectfulness of liberated slaves. ‘It goes to such lengths’, they said, ‘that former slaves confront their patron with the choice of yielding them their rights by legal argument, as equals, or by force. Freed slaves even lift their hands to strike their former master – and sarcastically urge their own punishment. For all that an injured patron may do is to send his freed slave away beyond the hundredth milestone – to the Campanian beaches! In all other respects the two men are legally equal and identical. Patrons ought to be given a weapon which cannot be disregarded. It would be no hardship for the liberated to have to keep their freedom by the same respectful behaviour which won it for them. Indeed, blatant offenders ought to be enslaved again, so as to frighten the ungrateful into obedience.’

The opposite argument went thus: ‘The guilty few ought to suffer, but not to the detriment of freed slaves’ rights in general. For ex-slaves are everywhere. They provide the majority of the voters, public servants, attendants of officials and priests, watchmen, firemen. Most knights, many senators, are descended from former slaves. Segregate the freed – and you will only show how few free-born there are! When our ancestors fixed degrees of rank, they were right to make everyone free. Besides, two sorts of liberation were instituted to leave room for second thoughts or favour. Some were liberated ‘by the wand’, those who were not remained half-slaves. Slave-owners ought to consider individual merits, but be slow to grant what is irrevocable.’

This opinion prevailed. Nero wrote asking the senate to give separate consideration to every charge by a patron, but not to diminish the rights of ex-slaves in general. Soon afterwards his aunt Domitia was deprived of the patronage of her former slave Paris, ostensibly on legal grounds. He was pronounced free-born, on the orders of the emperor – whose reputation suffered thereby.

Nevertheless there were still signs of a free country. A dispute arose between a praetor, Vibullius, and a tribune, Antistius Sosianus, because the latter had ordered the release of some of the disorderly followers of ballet-dancers. The praetor had imprisoned these hangers-on, and the senate backed him, censuring the tribune for irregularity. They also forbade tribunes to encroach on the authority of praetors and consuls, or to summon Italian litigants to Rome in cases where local settlement was practicable. The consul-designate Lucius Calpurnius Piso (V) added proposals that tribunes should not exercise their powers in their own homes, and that fines imposed by them should not be entered in the Treasury records for four months, during which time objections could be lodged for adjudication by the consuls. The powers of aediles, too, were curtailed, limits being fixed to the sums which ‘curule’ aediles and aediles of the people could distrain or fine. Moreover a quaestor in charge of the Treasury, Helvidius Priscus (II), was quarrelling with a tribune, Obultronius Sabinus, who charged him with over-rigorous compulsory sales of poor men’s property. Thereupon the emperor transferred the Treasury and public accounts from quaestors to commissioners who were experienced former praetors. The control of the Treasury has undergone numerous changes. Augustus entrusted it to commissioners selected by the senate. Later, when improper canvassing was suspected, they were chosen by lot from the praetors. But the lot could fall on incompetent men, so this arrangement too was short-lived. Claudius returned the post to quaestors. However, thinking they might prove inactive through fear of giving offence, he promised them exceptional promotion. But the young men lacked the maturity for so important a first post.

A governor of Sardinia, Vipsanius Laenas, was found guilty of fraudulence (also in this year). However, a governor of Achaia, Cestius Proculus, charged by the Cretans with extortion, was exonerated. The fleet-commander at Ravenna, Publius Palpellius Clodius Quirinalis, who had inflicted his savagery and debauchery on Italy as if it were the humblest of subject territories, poisoned himself to forestall condemnation. Caninius Rebilus, outstanding in legal learning and wealth, escaped the miseries of invalid old age by opening his veins. No one had thought he had the courage for this, because of his notorious effeminacy. Lucius Volusius Saturninus (II) also died, leaving a distinguished reputation and a great fortune, honestly won. He had lived to ninety-three and avoided the malevolence of every emperor.

Next year, when the consuls were Nero (for the second time) and Lucius Calpurnius Piso (V), little worth recording occurred, except in the eyes of historians who like filling their pages with praise of the foundations and beams of Nero’s huge amphitheatre in the Field of Mars.¹ But that is material for official gazettes, whereas it has traditionally been judged fitting to Rome’s grandeur that its histories should contain only important events. Drafts of ex-soldiers were sent to two Italian settlements, Capua and Nuceria. The city population were given a bonus of four hundred sesterces a head. Forty million sesterces were paid into the Treasury to maintain public credit. The 4 per cent tax on the purchase of slaves was waived (though its removal was a fiction, since the tax was only shifted to the dealers, who increased their prices accordingly).

The emperor also published instructions that no provincial official, in his province, should give shows of gladiators or wild beasts, or any other display. For hitherto this ostensible generosity had been as oppressive to provincials as extortion, the governors’ intention being to win partisans to screen their irregularities. The senate also passed a punitive and precautionary measure. If a man was murdered by his slaves, those liberated by his will – if they were in the house – were to be executed with the rest.

At this time a former consul Lurius Varus, formerly convicted of extortion, was restored to his rank. The distinguished lady Pomponia Graecina, wife of Aulus Plautius – whose official ovation for British victories I have mentioned¹ – was charged with foreign superstition and referred to her husband for trial. Following ancient tradition he decided her fate and reputation before her kinsmen, and acquitted her. But her long life was continuously unhappy. For after the murder, by Messalina’s intrigues, of her relative Livia Julia – daughter of Drusus – she wore mourning and grieved unceasingly for forty years. This escaped punishment under Claudius, and thereafter gave her prestige.

The same year witnessed several prosecutions. Publius Celer was accused by the province of Asia. He, as I have mentioned, had been the murderer of his governor Marcus Junius Silanus (II) – a great enough crime to overshadow his other misdeeds. Nero could not acquit him. Instead he protracted the case until Celer died of old age. Cossutianus Capito was indicted by the Cilicians. This vicious and disreputable individual believed he could behave as outrageously in his province as in Rome. Defeated, however, by determined prosecutors, he abandoned his defence and was condemned under the extortion law. The Lycians claimed damages from Titus Clodius Eprius Marcellus.² But his intrigues were so effective that some of his accusers were exiled for endangering an innocent man.

Nero’s colleague in his third consulship was Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus (II), whose great-grandfather, the orator of the same name, a few old men remembered as consular colleague of Nero’s great-great-grandfather the divine Augustus. The reputation of Messalla’s distinguished family was now buttressed by an annual grant of half a million sesterces to enable him to support his poverty honestly. The emperor also conferred annuities on two other senators, Aurelius Cotta and Quintus Haterius Antoninus, though both had squandered their inherited fortunes by extravagance.

At the beginning of the year the war between Rome and Parthia for the possession of Armenia,³ in abeyance after a half-hearted start, was energetically resumed. For Vologeses I of Parthia would allow his brother Tiridates neither to lose the Armenian throne, which he had given him, nor to hold it as the gift of a foreign power; whereas Cnaeus Domitius Corbulo (II) felt that the grandeur of Rome required the recovery of the territories once conquered by Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Pompey. Furthermore, the Armenians were divided in allegiance and asked both sides in. But their geographical position and way of life inclined them to the Parthians; and with Parthians they had intermarried. So those were the masters they preferred. Of freedom they knew nothing.

Corbulo found his own men’s slackness a worse trouble than enemy treachery. His troops had come from Syria. Demoralized by years of peace, they took badly to service conditions. The army actually contained old soldiers who had never been on guard or watch, who found ramparts and ditches strange novelties, and who owned neither helmet nor breastplate – flashy money-makers who had soldiered in towns. Corbulo discharged men who were too old or too weak, and filled their places with Galatian and Cappadocian recruits, augmented by a brigade from Germany with auxiliary infantry and cavalry. The whole army was kept under canvas through a winter so severe that ice had to be removed and the ground excavated before tents could be pitched. Frostbite caused many losses of limbs. Sentries were frozen to death. A soldier was seen carrying a bundle of firewood with hands so frozen that they fell off, fastened to their load.

Corbulo himself, thinly dressed and bare-headed, moved among his men at work and on the march, encouraging the sick and praising efficiency – an example to all. But the harsh climate and service produced many shirkers and deserters. Corbulo’s remedy was severity. In other armies, first and second offences were excused: Corbulo executed deserters immediately. Results showed that this was salutary and preferable to indulgence. For he had fewer deserters than lenient commanders.

Corbulo kept his troops in camp until spring was under way. Auxiliary infantry were suitably distributed, with orders not to provoke battle. These outposts were put under a senior staff-officer, Paccius Orfitus. He reported that the natives were unguarded and conditions were suitable for an engagement; but he was instructed to stay behind his defences and await reinforcements. When, however, a few small units reached him from neighbouring forts and ignorantly clamoured to fight, Paccius flouted his orders and attacked. He was routed. The troops who should have supported him took fright at his defeat and withdrew headlong to their respective entrenchments. Corbulo was angry. Reprimanding Paccius, he ordered him and his staff and men to encamp outside the fortifications, and in that degrading position they were kept until a unanimous petition secured their release.

Tiridates, now supported by his brother Vologeses’ forces as well as his own dependants, dropped concealment and openly ravaged Armenia. As he moved rapidly, plundering communities he believed to be pro-Roman and evading detachments sent against him, his reputation (rather than any warlike feats) terrorized the country. Corbulo tried persistently to force an engagement, but failed. Instead he was forced to imitate the enemy and enlarge the theatre of war, dispersing his formations so that their commanders could deliver co-ordinated attacks at different points. So the king of Commagene, Antiochus Epiphanes IV, was ordered to invade the regions nearest his border. Pharasmanes, king of Iberia, also demonstrated his friendship to us by reviving his longstanding feud with the Armenians; he had executed his son Radamistus as a traitor. The tribe of the Heniochi, too, inaugurated their record of keen loyalty to Rome by overrunning certain remote areas.

Tiridates’ plans were upset. Envoys from him demanded, in his and Parthia’s name, why after he had recently given hostages and reaffirmed friendship he was being expelled from his longstanding occupancy of Armenia. Vologeses, they added, had not acted yet because they preferred to rely on their rights rather than force; but if the Romans persisted in fighting, then the Parthian royal house would again be as valorous and successful as numerous Roman disasters had proved it. But Corbulo knew that Vologeses was occupied with a rebellion in Hyrcania. So he urged Tiridates to petition the emperor. ‘You might win a secure throne bloodlessly’, he suggested, ‘if you abandon distant far-off ambitions and take the better chance that is now offered you.’

These exchanges, however, did not bring peace any nearer. So it was decided to fix the place and time for a meeting. Tiridates said he would bring a thousand cavalry as escort – Corbulo could bring as many men as he liked, of whatever kind, provided that they came peaceably, without breastplates or helmets. Anyone, and best of all a wary veteran commander, could see a cunning native trick in the proposal to restrict his own numbers but allow Corbulo more. For any number of unarmed men, exposed to trained bowmen on horseback, would be useless. Pretending not to understand, Corbulo replied that these national issues were best discussed in front of their whole armies. The site he chose was between gently sloping hills suitable for infantry movements and level ground on which cavalry could deploy.

On the appointed day Corbulo arrived first. On his flanks were auxiliaries from the provinces and dependent kingdoms, in the centre the sixth brigade strengthened by an admixture of three thousand men from the third – these summoned from another camp by night but put under the same Eagle to look like a single brigade. It was evening when Tiridates appeared; but he stayed in the distance – visible yet not audible. So there was no meeting. Corbulo ordered his men to return to their respective camps. Tiridates moved away hastily. Either the dispersal of the Roman army made him suspect treachery, or he wanted to intercept provisions reaching us by the Black Sea by way of Trapezus. In this, however, he failed since the supply-line across the mountains was in Roman hands.

To avoid a long unprofitable campaign and put the Armenians on the defensive, Corbulo prepared to destroy their forts. Leaving smaller ones to two subordinates, the divisional commander Cornelius Flaccus and Insteius Capito, now chief-of-staff, he himself tackled the strongest in the region, Volandum by name. After reconnoitring its fortifications he planned the assault. He urged his men to strike for glory and also for plunder, and expel this shifty enemy who wanted neither war nor peace but admitted their treachery and cowardice by fleeing. Corbulo divided his force into four detachments. One he massed in tortoise-formation and set to destroying the rampart. Another had orders to move ladders to the walls. A further large party was to shoot torches and javelins from engines. Finally, two kinds of slingers were allotted positions to discharge lead bullets at long range.

The intention was to press the enemy at every point so that no unit in difficulties could be relieved from elsewhere. The attack was so energetic that, before the day was one-third gone, the Armenian defenders were swept from the walls, their barricades at the gates flattened, fortifications scaled and taken, every adult male killed – without the loss of one Roman soldier, and with very few wounded.

The non-combatant population were sold as slaves. Everything else went as spoils to the victors. The other two commanders were equally successful. The storming of three forts in one day caused the remaining garrisons to surrender in panic – or in some cases willingly.

This encouraged Corbulo to attack the Armenian capital Artaxata. But the direct route would have involved crossing the river Aras by a bridge right under the city walls and exposed to missiles. So his force instead crossed by a wider ford some way off. Tiridates was torn between pride and fright. Acquiescence in a siege would make him look helpless. But intervention would mean entangling himself and his cavalry on difficult ground. Finally he decided to display battle order and, as opportunity offered, to fight or lure the enemy into an ambush, by pretending to retreat. By the latter means he suddenly enveloped the Roman army.

But Corbulo was not taken by surprise. His forces were as ready for fighting as for marching; on the right flank stood the third brigade, on the left the sixth, with picked troops of the tenth in the centre. The baggage was brought within the lines. A thousand cavalry protected the rear, with orders to resist hand-to-hand attack but not to follow if the enemy withdrew. On the wings were the remaining cavalry and foot-archers. The left wing was extended along the foot of the hills so that enemy penetration could be outflanked as well as met frontally. Tiridates approached the Roman front line. He kept out of range, but by alternately threatening attack and simulating alarm tried to detach our formations so that he could fall on them separately. However, the Roman ranks remained cautiously closed. Only the commander of a cavalry section advanced too impetuously; he fell transfixed. But this example merely strengthened the general obedience. As darkness approached, Tiridates withdrew.

Corbulo pitched camp where he was. Supposing Tiridates to have retired to Artaxata, he thought of marching his forces there by night without heavy baggage and investing the town. But intelligence reports indicated that the king was on a long journey, either to Media Atropatene or to Albanie(?). So Corbulo awaited daytime. Meanwhile he sent light-armed auxiliaries ahead to surround the walls and begin the siege from a distance. But the inhabitants of Artaxata voluntarily opened the gates and surrendered themselves and their property to the Romans, thus saving their lives.

The city was set on fire and razed to the ground. Its extensive walls could only have been held by a considerable garrison, and the Roman army was not numerous enough to provide garrisons as well as fighting. If, however, the town had been left unscathed and unguarded, its capture would have brought neither glory nor benefit. Besides, a divine portent seemed to occur. While the sun shone brightly all round the walls, the area of the city itself was suddenly enveloped in a dark cloud with unearthly lightning-flashes. It was believed that the angry gods were consigning Artaxata to destruction.

*

For these achievements Nero was officially hailed as victor. The senate decreed thanksgivings. They voted the emperor statues, arches, and a succession of consulships. The days of the victory and its announcement were to rank as festivals. Following further extravagant decrees of the same sort, Gaius Cassius Longinus – who had supported the other honours – observed that if the gods were to be thanked worthily for their favours the whole year was too short for their thanksgivings: so a distinction should be made between religious festivals and working days on which people might perform religious duties without neglecting mundane ones.

Now came the condemnation of Publius Suillius Rufus. He had earned much hatred in his stormy career. Nevertheless his fall brought discredit upon Seneca. Under Claudius the venal Suillius had been formidable. Changed times had not brought him as low as his enemies wished. Indeed, he envisaged himself as aggressor rather than suppliant. It was to suppress him – so it was said – that the senate had revived an old decree under the Cincian law, penalizing advocates who accepted fees. Suillius protested abusively, reviling Seneca with characteristic ferocity and senile outspokenness.

‘Seneca hates Claudius’ friends,’ said Suillius. ‘For under Claudius he was most deservedly exiled! He only understands academic activities and immature youths. So he envies men who speak out vigorously and unaffectedly for their fellow-citizens. I was on Germanicus’ staff – while Seneca was committing adultery in his house! Is the acceptance of rewards a dependant offers voluntarily, for an honourable job, a worse offence than seducing imperial princesses? What branch of learning, what philosophical school, won Seneca three hundred million sesterces during four years of imperial friendship? In Rome, he entices into his snares the childless and their legacies. His huge rates of interest suck Italy and the provinces dry. I, on the other hand, have worked for my humble means. I will endure prosecution, trial, and everything else rather than have my lifelong efforts wiped out by this successful upstart!’

There were people to tell Seneca of these words, or exaggerated versions of them. Accusers were found. They charged Suillius with fleecing the provincials as governor of Asia, and embezzling public funds. The prosecution was granted a year for investigation. Meanwhile it was thought quicker to begin with charges relating to Rome – for which witnesses were available. They accused Suillius of forcing a former consul, Quintus Pomponius Secundus, into civil war by his savage indictments, driving Livia Julia, daughter of Drusus, and Poppaea Sabina to their deaths, striking down Decimus Valerius Asiaticus and two other ex-consuls, Quintus Lutetius Lusius Saturninus and Cornelius Lupus, and convicting masses of knights – in a word, all the brutalities of Claudius.

Suillius’ defence was that he had invariably acted not on his own initiative but on the emperor’s orders. But Nero cut him short, declaring that his father Claudius had never insisted on any prosecutions – his papers proved it. Suillius then alleged instructions from Messalina. But this defence too broke down. For why (it was asked) had just Suillius, and no one else, been selected to speak for that bar barous harlot? – the instrument of atrocities, the man who was paid for crimes and then blamed them on others, must be punished.

Half his estate was confiscated. His son, Marcus Suillius Nerullinus, and granddaughter were allowed the other half, as well as what they had inherited from their mother and grandmother. Suillius himself was exiled to the Balearic islands. Neither ordeal nor aftermath broke his spirit. His retirement was known to be sustained by comfortable self-indulgence. When accusers, relying on Suillius’ unpopularity, prosecuted his son for extortion, the emperor felt vengeance was satisfied and vetoed the proceedings.

At about this time the tribune Octavius Sagitta, madly in love with a married woman called Pontia, paid her vast sums to become his mistress and then to leave her husband. He promised to marry her, and secured a similar promise from her. But once she was free she procrastinated, pleading her father’s opposition and evading her promise – a richer husband now being in prospect. Octavius remonstrated, threatened, and appealed – his reputation and money were both gone (he said), and his life, all that he had left, he put in her hands. But she remained unmoved.

He pleaded for one night – as a consolation and to help him control himself in future. The night was fixed. Pontia had a maid in attendance who knew of the affair. Octavius arrived with a former slave. Under his clothes was a dagger. Love and anger took their course. They quarrelled, pleaded, insulted each other, made it up. For part of the night they made love. Then, ostensibly carried away by passion, he stabbed the unsuspecting woman with his dagger. A maid ran in and fell wounded by him. Then he fled.

When day came the murder was discovered. They were proved to have been together; the murderer was unmistakable. The ex-slave, however, claimed that the action was his, undertaken to avenge his patron’s wrongs. Many were convinced by his devotion. But the maid recovered from her wound and revealed the truth. Octavius was charged before the consuls by his victim’s father. He ceased to be tribune and was condemned by senatorial decree and under the law of murder.

An equally conspicuous case of immorality in the same year brought grave national disaster. There was at Rome a woman called Poppaea. Friendship with Sejanus had ruined her father, Titus Ollius, before he held office, and she had assumed the name of her brilliant maternal grandfather, Gaius Poppaeus Sabinus, of illustrious memory for his consulship and honorary Triumph. Poppaea had every asset except goodness. From her mother, the loveliest woman of her day, she inherited distinction and beauty. Her wealth, too, was equal to her birth. She was clever and pleasant to talk to. She seemed respectable. But her life was depraved. Her public appearances were few; she would half-veil her face at them, to stimulate curiosity (or because it suited her). To her, married or bachelor bedfellows were alike. She was indifferent to her reputation – yet insensible to men’s love, and herself unloving. Advantage dictated the bestowal of her favours.

While married to a knight called Rufrius Crispinus – to whom she had borne a son – she was seduced by Marcus Salvius Otho, an extravagant youth who was regarded as peculiarly close to Nero. Their liaison was quickly converted into marriage. Otho praised her charms and graces to the emperor. This was either a lover’s indiscretion or a deliberate stimulus prompted by the idea that joint possession of Pop-paea would be a bond reinforcing Otho’s own power. As he left the emperor’s table he was often heard saying he was going to his wife, who had brought him what all men want and only the fortunate enjoy – nobility and beauty.

Under such provocations, delay was brief. Poppaea obtained access to Nero, and established her ascendancy. First she used flirtatious wiles, pretending to be unable to resist her passion for Nero’s looks. Then, as the emperor fell in love with her, she became haughty, and if he kept her for more than two nights she insisted that she was married and could not give up her marriage. ‘I am devoted to Otho. My relations with him are unique. His character and way of living are both fine. There is a man for whom nothing is too good. Whereas you, Nero, are kept down because the mistress you live with is a servant, Acte. What a sordid, dreary, menial association!’

Otho lost his intimacy with the emperor. Soon he was excluded from Nero’s receptions and company. Finally, to eliminate his rivalry from the Roman scene, he was made governor of Lusitania. There, until the civil war, he lived moderately and respectably – enjoying himself in his spare time, officially blameless.

At this juncture Nero stopped trying to justify his criminal misdeeds. He particularly distrusted Faustus Cornelius Sulla Felix, whose stupidity he wrongly interpreted as well-concealed cunning. This suspicion was intensified by the fabrication of an old former imperial slave Graptus, familiar with the palace since Tiberius’ reign. At this time the Milvian Bridge was notorious for its night resorts. Nero used to go there; he could enjoy himself more riotously outside the city. On his way home by the Flaminian road one night, a few young revellers, typical of the times, caused groundless alarm among his attendants. ‘There had been a plot to attack Nero!’ lied Graptus. ‘Only a providential detour to the Gardens of Sallust had saved him – and the plotter was Sulla!’ No slave or dependant of Sulla was identified, and his wholly timid and despicable character was incapable of such an attempt. However, he was treated as if proved guilty, exiled, and confined to Massilia.

This year Puteoli sent two opposing delegations to the senate, one from the town council and one from the other citizens. The council complained of public disorderliness, and the populace of embezzlement by officials and leading men. There had been riots, with stone-throwing and threatened arson. Gaius Cassius Longinus was appointed to prevent armed warfare and find a solution. But the town could not stand his severity, and at his own request the task was transferred to two brothers, Publius Sulpicius Scribonius Proculus and Sulpicius Scribonius Rufus. They were allocated a battalion of the Guard, fear of which – supplemented by a few executions – restored harmony.

The senate also passed a decree authorizing the city of Syracuse to exceed the numbers allowed at gladiatorial displays. This would be too insignificant to mention had not the opposition of Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus¹ given his critics a chance to attack his attitude. ‘If’, they said, ‘Thrasea believes Rome needs a free senate, why does he pursue such trivial matters? Why does he not argue one way or the other about questions of war and peace, taxation, legislation, and other matters of national importance? When a senator is called upon to speak, he may speak about anything and demand a motion about it. Is the prevention of extravagance at Syracusan shows the only reform we need? Is everything else in the empire as good as if Thrasea and not Nero were its ruler? If significant matters are passed over and ignored, surely trivialities ought to be left alone.’ Thrasea, asked by his friends to justify himself, replied that it was not through ignorance of the general situation that he offered criticism on such a subject, but because he respectfully credited the senate with understanding that men who attended to these details would not fail to show attention to important matters also.

In this year there were persistent public complaints against the companies farming indirect taxes² from the government. Nero contemplated a noble gift to the human race: he would abolish every indirect tax. But the senators whom he consulted, after loudly praising his noble generosity, restrained his impulse. They indicated that the empire could not survive without its revenues, and that abolition of the indirect customs dues would be followed by demands to abolish direct taxation also. Many companies for collecting indirect taxes, they recalled, had been established by consuls and tribunes in the freest times of the Republic; since then such taxation had formed part of the efforts to balance income and expenditure. But Nero’s advisers agreed that tax-collectors’ acquisitiveness must be restrained, to prevent novel grievances from discrediting taxes long endured uncomplainingly.

So the emperor’s orders were these. Regulations governing each tax, hitherto confidential, were to be published. Claims for arrears were to lapse after one year. Praetors at Rome, governors in the provinces, must give special priority to cases against tax-collectors. Soldiers were to remain tax-free except on what they sold. There were other excellent provisions too. But they were soon evaded – though the abolition of certain illegal exactions invented by tax-collectors, such as the two and a half per cent and two per cent duties,¹ is still valid. Overseas transportation of grain was facilitated, and it was decided to exempt merchant ships from assessment and property-tax.

At this juncture two ex-governors of Africa, Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus and Marcus Pompeius Silvanus, were tried by the emperor and acquitted. Camerinus was charged not with embezzlement but with brutal acts towards a few individuals; Silvanus was beset by a crowd of accusers who requested time to collect witnesses. But he insisted on an immediate hearing, and being rich, old, and childless, was successful. Moreover, he outlived the legacy-hunters whose scheming had secured his acquittal!

Up to now, Germany had been peaceful because, prodigal awards having cheapened the honorary Triumph, our generals looked for greater glory from maintaining peace. To keep the troops busy, the imperial governor of Lower Germany, Pompeius Paulinus, finished the dam for controlling the Rhine, begun sixty-three years previously by Nero Drusus. His colleague in Upper Germany, Lucius Antistius Vetus, planned to build a Saône-Moselle canal. Goods arriving from the Mediterranean up the Rhône and Saône would thus pass via the Moselle into the Rhine, and so to the North Sea. Such a waterway, joining the western Mediterranean to the northern seaboard, would eliminate the difficulties of land transport. But the imperial governor of Gallia Belgica, Aelius Gracilis, jealously prevented his neighbour in Lower Germany from bringing his army into the province he governed. ‘This would be currying favour in Gaul, and would worry the emperor,’ he objected – using an argument which often blocks good projects.

The prolonged inaction of the Roman armies led to a rumour that their commanders had been forbidden to open hostilities. So the Frisians, led by Verritus and Malorix – their kings (in so far as Germans have any) – advanced to the Rhine bank. Moving their fighting men over swamps and woods, and shipping the young and old across the lakes, they settled in lands reserved for Roman troops. There they erected houses, sowed fields, and tilled the land as if they had inherited it. However, a new imperial governor of Lower Germany, Lucius Duvius Avitus, threatened them with the power of Rome unless they returned to their old lands or had new ones granted by the emperor.

Verritus and Malorix decided to appeal. They went to Rome. While waiting for Nero, who was engaged, they visited Pompey’s Theatre – one of the sights usually shown barbarians – to see the huge crowd. There, to pass the time (for they had not the education to enjoy the show), they inquired about the seating arrangements and distinctions between orders – where senators had their places and where knights sat. They saw, seated among the senators, men in foreign clothes. On inquiry they learnt that these were delegates who received this compliment because their nations were conspicuous for courage, and friendship for Rome. Crying that no race on earth was braver and more loyal than the Germans, they moved down and sat among the senators. The spectators liked this fine, impulsive, old-fashioned pride of race; and Nero made them both Roman citizens. All the same, he ordered the Frisians to evacuate the land. And when diey ignored this instruction, auxiliary cavalry arrived unexpectedly and enforced his commands, capturing or killing obstinate resisters.

Then the Ampsivarii occupied the territory. They were a larger tribe, and inspired sympathy in neighbouring peoples since they had been expelled from their lands by the Chauci, and were homeless petitioners for a safe place of exile. Their spokesman was the pro-Roman Boiocalus, a well-known figure among these tribes. ‘when the Cherusci rebelled’, he reminded us, ‘Arminius imprisoned me. I served under Tiberius and Germanicus. Now, as the climax to fifty years of loyalty, I am bringing my people into your empire. How little of this land would ever be used for the eventual grazing of Roman soldiers’ flocks and herds! Reserve pasturage for cattle – if you must – though men are starving: but not, surely, to the extent of thinking desert wastes more useful to you than friendly nations! This used to be the territory of the Chamavi tribe, and then the Tubantes, and then the Usipi. Just as heaven belongs to the gods, the earth belongs to man: and tenantless land can be occupied.’ He raised his eyes to the sun; he invoked all the heavenly bodies. ‘Do you like looking at empty land?’ he pretended to ask them. ‘Then flood it – rather than expel us! And drown those who take other men’s soil!’

Lucius Duvius Avitus was impressed. But he replied that men must obey their betters, that the gods they invoked had empowered the Romans to decide what to give and take away and to tolerate no judges but themselves. That was his official answer to the Ampsivarii. To Boiocalus himself, however, he promised land on the strength of his loyal record. The German rejected this as the wage of treachery. ‘We may have nowhere to live’, he commented, ‘but we can find somewhere to die!’ And they parted on bad terms.

The Ampsivarii urged the Bructeri, the Tencteri, and even more distant tribes, to fight at their side. Avitus wrote requesting the imperial governor of Upper Germany, Titus Curtilius Mancia, to cross the Rhine and menace their rear. Then Avitus invaded their potential allies the Tencteri, successfully threatening annihilation if they joined in. The Bructeri were likewise intimidated, and the other tribes proved equally unwilling to involve themselves in other people’s dangers. The Ampsivarii fell back on the Usipi and Tubantes, who compelled them, however, to move on to the Chatti and then to the Cherusci. In their protracted wanderings, the exiles were treated as guests, then as beggars, then as enemies. Finally, their fighting men were exterminated, their young and old distributed as booty.

The same summer, the Hermunduri and Chatti fought a great battle. Each wanted to seize the rich salt-producing river which flowed between them. Besides their passion for settling everything by force, they held a religious conviction that this region was close to heaven so that men’s prayers received ready access. And by divine favour, they believed, salt in this river and these woods was produced, not as in other countries by the evaporation of water left by the sea, but by pouring it on heaps of burning wood and thus uniting the two opposed elements, fire and water. In the battle, the Chatti were defeated – with catastrophic effects. For both sides, in the event of victory, had vowed their enemies to Mars and Mercury.¹ This vow implied the sacrifice of the entire beaten side with their horses and all their possessions. So the threats of this anti-Roman people recoiled on themselves.

But a friendly tribe also, the Ubii, were overwhelmed by a sudden disaster. Flames bursting out of the ground devoured farmhouses, crops, and villages far and wide, right up to the walls of the recently founded settlement named after Agrippina. Neither rain nor river nor any other water could quench the fire. Finally a few desperate and distraught peasants hurled rocks into the flames, and, as they subsided, advanced and fought them with clubs and other implements, as one would fight wild animals. Finally, they tore off their clothes and heaped them on. The oldest and dirtiest garments were most effective as extinguishers.

The fig-tree called ‘Ruminalis’, in the Place of Assembly, which 830 years earlier had sheltered the babies Romulus and Remus, suffered in this year. Its shoots died and its trunk withered. This was regarded as a portent. However, it revived, with fresh shoots.

When the new year came, and Gaius Vipstanus Apronianus and Gaius Fonteius Capito (II) became consuls, Nero ceased delaying his long-meditated crime. The longer his reign lasted, the bolder he became. Besides, he loved Poppaea more every day. While Agrippina lived, Poppaea saw no hope of his divorcing Octavia and marrying her. So she nagged and mocked him incessantly. He was under his guardian’s thumb, she said – master neither of the empire nor of himself. ‘Otherwise’, she said, ‘why these postponements of our marriage? I suppose my looks and victorious ancestors are not good enough. Or do you distrust my capacity to bear children? Or the sincerity of my love?

‘No! I think you are afraid that, if we were married, I might tell you frankly how the senate is downtrodden and the public enraged by your mother’s arrogance and greed. If Agrippina can only tolerate daughters-in-law who hate her son, let me be Otho’s wife again! I will go anywhere in the world where I only need hear of the emperor’s humiliations rather than see them – and see you in danger, like myself!’ This appeal was reinforced by tears and all a lover’s tricks. Nero was won. Nor was there any opposition. Everyone longed for the mother’s domination to end. But no one believed that her son’s hatred would go as far as murder.

According to one author, Cluvius Rufus, Agrippina’s passion to retain power carried her so far that at midday, the time when food and drink were beginning to raise Nero’s temperature, she several times appeared before her inebriated son all decked out and ready for incest. Their companions observed sensual kisses and evilly suggestive caresses. Seneca, supposing that the answer to a woman’s enticements was a woman, called in the ex-slave Acte. She feared for Nero’s reputation – and for her own safety. Now she was instructed to warn Nero that Agrippina was boasting of her intimacy with her son, that her boasts had received wide publicity, and that the army would never tolerate a sacrilegious emperor.

Another writer, Fabius Rusticus, agrees in attributing successful intervention to Acte’s wiles, but states that the desires were not Agrippina’s but Nero’s. But the other authorities support the contrary version. So does the tradition. That may be because Agrippina really did intend this monstrosity. Or perhaps it is because no sexual novelty seemed incredible in such a woman. In her earliest years she had employed an illicit relationship with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (V) as a means to power. Through the same ambition she had sunk to be Pallas’ mistress. Then, married to her uncle, her training in abomination was complete. So Nero avoided being alone with her. When she left for her gardens or country mansions at Tusculum and Antium, he praised her intention of taking a holiday.

Finally, however, he concluded that wherever Agrippina was she was intolerable. He decided to kill her. His only doubt was whether to employ poison, or the dagger, or violence of some other kind. Poison was the first choice. But a death at the emperor’s table would not look fortuitous after Britannicus had died there. Yet her criminal conscience kept her so alert for plots that it seemed impracticable to corrupt her household. Moreover, she had strengthened her physical resistance by a preventive course of antidotes. No one could think of a way of stabbing her without detection. And there was another danger: that the selected assassin might shrink from carrying out his dreadful orders.

However, a scheme was put forward by Anicetus, an ex-slave who commanded the fleet at Misenum. In Nero’s boyhood Anicetus had been his tutor; he and Agrippina hated each other. A ship could be made, he now said, with a section which would come loose at sea and hurl Agrippina into the water without warning. Nothing is so productive of surprises as the sea, remarked Anicetus; if a shipwreck did away with her, who could be so unreasonable as to blame a human agency instead of wind and water? Besides, when she was dead the emperor could allot her a temple and altars and the other public tokens of filial duty.

This ingenious plan found favour. The time of year, too, was suitable, since Nero habitually attended the festival of Minerva at Baiae.¹ Now he enticed his mother there. ‘Parents’ tempers must be borne!’ he kept announcing. ‘One must humour their feelings’. This was to create the general impression that they were friends again, and to produce the same effect on Agrippina. For women are naturally inclined to believe welcome news.

As she arrived from Antium, Nero met her at the shore. After welcoming her with outstretched hands and embraces, he conducted her to Bauli, a mansion on the bay between Cape Misenum and the waters of Baiae. Some ships were standing there. One, more sumptuous than the rest, was evidently another compliment to his mother, who had formerly been accustomed to travel in warships manned by the imperial navy. Then she was invited out to dinner. The crime was to take place on the ship under cover of darkness. But an informer, it was said, gave the plot away; Agrippina could not decide whether to believe the story, and preferred a sedan-chair as her conveyance to Baiae.

There her alarm was relieved by Nero’s attentions. He received her kindly, and gave her the place of honour next himself. The party went on for a long time. They talked about various things; Nero was boyish and intimate – or confidentially serious. When she left, he saw her off, gazing into her eyes and clinging to her. This may have been a final piece of shamming – or perhaps even Nero’s brutal heart was affected by his last sight of his mother, going to her death.

But heaven seemed determined to reveal the crime. For it was a quiet, star-lit night and the sea was calm. The ship began to go on its way. Agrippina was attended by two of her friends. One of them, Crepereius Gallus, stood near the tiller. The other, Acerronia, leant over the feet of her resting mistress, happily talking about Nero’s remorseful behaviour and his mother’s re-established influence. Then came the signal. Under the pressure of heavy lead weights, the roof fell in. Crepereius was crushed, and died instantly. Agrippina and Acerronia were saved by the raised sides of their couch, which happened to be strong enough to resist the pressure. Moreover, the ship held together.

In the general confusion, those in the conspiracy were hampered by the many who were not. But then some of the oarsmen had the idea of throwing their weight on one side, to capsize the ship. However, they took too long to concert this improvised plan, and meanwhile others brought weight to bear in the opposite direction. This provided the opportunity to make a gentler descent into the water. Acerronia ill-advisedly started crying out, ‘I am Agrippina! Help, help the emperor’s mother!’ She was struck dead by blows from poles and oars and whatever ship’s gear happened to be available. Agrippina herself kept quiet and avoided recognition. Though she was hurt – she had a wound in the shoulder – she swam until she came to some sailing-boats. They brought her to the Lucrine lake, from which she was taken home.

There she realized that the invitation and special compliment had been treacherous, and the collapse of her ship planned. The collapse had started at the top, like a stage-contrivance. The shore was close by, there had been no wind, no rock to collide with. Acerronia’s death and her own wound also invited reflection. Agrippina decided that the only escape from the plot was to profess ignorance of it. She sent an ex-slave Agerinus to tell her son that by divine mercy and his lucky star she had survived a serious accident. The messenger was to add, however, that despite anxiety about his mother’s dangerous experience Nero must not yet trouble to visit her – at present rest was what she needed. Meanwhile, pretending unconcern, she cared for her wound and physical condition generally. She also ordered Acerronia’s will to be found and her property sealed. Here alone no pretence was needed.

To Nero, awaiting news that the crime was done, came word that she had escaped with a slight wound – after hazards which left no doubt of their instigator’s identity. Half-dead with fear, he insisted she might arrive at any moment. ‘She may arm her slaves! She may whip up the army, or gain access to the senate or Assembly, and incriminate me for wrecking and wounding her and killing her friends! What can I do to save myself?’ Could Burrus and Seneca help? Whether they were in the plot is uncertain. But they were immediately awakened and summoned.

For a long time neither spoke. They did not want to dissuade and be rejected. They may have felt matters had gone so far that Nero had to strike before Agrippina, or die. Finally Seneca ventured so far as to turn to Burrus and ask if the troops should be ordered to kill her. He replied that the Guard were devoted to the whole imperial house and to Germanicus’ memory; they would commit no violence against his offspring. Anicetus, he said, must make good his promise. Anicetus unhesitatingly claimed the direction of the crime. Hearing him, Nero cried that this was the first day of his reign – and the magnificent gift came from a former slave! ‘Go quickly!’ he said. ‘And take men who obey orders scrupulously!’

Agrippina’s messenger arrived. When Nero was told, he took the initiative, and staged a fictitious incrimination. While Agerinus delivered his message, Nero dropped a sword at the man’s feet and had him arrested as if caught red-handed. Then he could pretend that his mother had plotted against the emperor’s life, been detected, and – in shame – committed suicide.

Meanwhile Agrippina’s perilous adventure had become known. It was believed to be accidental. As soon as people heard of it they ran to the beach, and climbed on to the embankment, or fishing-boats nearby. Others waded out as far as they could, or waved their arms. The whole shore echoed with wails and prayers and the din of all manner of inquiries and ignorant answers. Huge crowds gathered with lights. When she was known to be safe, they prepared to make a show of rejoicing.

But a menacing armed column arrived and dispersed them. Anicetus surrounded her house and broke in. Arresting every slave in his path, he came to her bedroom door. Here stood a few servants – the rest had been frightened away by the invasion. In her dimly lit room a single maid waited with her. Agrippina’s alarm had increased as nobody, not even Agerinus, came from her son. If things had been well there would not be this terribly ominous isolation, then this sudden uproar. Her maid vanished. ‘Are you leaving me, too?’ called Agrippina. Then she saw Anicetus. Behind him were a naval captain and lieutenant named Herculeius and Obaritus respectively. ‘If you have come to visit me’, she said, ‘you can report that I am better. But if you are assassins, I know my son is not responsible. He did not order his mother’s death.’ The murderers closed round her bed. First the captain hit her on the head with a truncheon. Then as the lieutenant was drawing his sword to finish her off, she cried out: ‘Strike here!’ – pointing to her womb. Blow after blow fell, and she died.

So far accounts agree. Some add that Nero inspected his mother’s corpse and praised her figure; but that is contested. She was cremated that night, on a dining couch, with meagre ceremony. While Nero reigned, her grave was not covered with earth or enclosed, though later her household gave her a modest tomb beside the road to Misenum, on the heights where Julius Caesar’s mansion overlooks the bay beneath. During the cremation one of her former slaves, Mnester (II), stabbed himself to death. Either he loved his patroness, or he feared assassination.

This was the end which Agrippina had anticipated for years. The prospect had not daunted her. When she asked astrologers about Nero, they had answered that he would become emperor but kill his mother. Her reply was, ‘Let him kill me – provided he becomes emperor!’ But Nero only understood the horror of his crime when it was done. For the rest of the night, witless and speechless, he alternately lay paralysed and leapt to his feet in terror – waiting for the dawn which he thought would be his last. Hope began to return to him when at Burrus’ suggestion the colonels and captains of the Guard came and cringed to him, with congratulatory handclasps for his escape from the unexpected menace of his mother’s evil activities. Nero’s friends crowded to the temples. Campanian towns nearby followed their lead and displayed joy by sacrifices and deputations.

Nero’s insincerity took a different form. He adopted a gloomy demeanour, as though sorry to be safe and mourning for his parent’s death. But the features of the countryside are less adaptable than those of men; and Nero’s gaze could not escape the dreadful view of that sea and shore. Besides, the coast echoed (it was said) with trumpet blasts from the neighbouring hills – and wails from his mother’s grave. So Nero departed to Neapolis.

He wrote the senate a letter. Its gist was that Agerinus, a confidential ex-slave of Agrippina, had been caught with a sword, about to murder him, and that she, conscious of her guilt as instigator of the crime, had paid the penalty. He added older charges. ‘She had wanted to be co-ruler – to receive oaths of allegiance from the Guard, and to subject senate and public to the same humiliation. Disappointed of this, she had hated all of them – army, senate and people. She had opposed gratuities to soldiers and civilians alike. She had contrived the deaths of distinguished men.’ Only with the utmost difficulty, added Nero, had he prevented her from breaking into the senate-house and delivering verdicts to foreign envoys. He also indirectly attacked Claudius’ régime, blaming his mother for all its scandals. Her death, he said, was providential. And he even called the shipwreck a happy accident. For even the greatest fool could not believe it accidental – or imagine that one shipwrecked woman had sent a single armed man to break through the imperial guards and fleets. Here condemnation fell not on Nero, whose monstrous conduct beggared criticism, but on Seneca who had composed his self-incriminating speech.

Nevertheless leading citizens competed with complimentary proposals – thanksgivings at every shrine; annual games at Minerva’s Festival (during which the discovery of the plot had been staged); the erection in the senate-house of gold statues of Minerva and (beside her) the emperor; the inclusion of Agrippina’s birthday among ill-omened dates. It had been the custom of Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus to pass over flatteries in silence or with curt agreement. But this time he walked out of the senate – thereby endangering himself without bringing general freedom any nearer.

Many prodigies occurred. A woman gave birth to a snake. Another woman was killed in her husband’s arms by a thunderbolt. The sun suddenly went dark. All fourteen city-districts were struck by lightning. But these portents meant nothing. So little were they due to the gods that Nero continued his reign and his crimes for years to come.

However, to intensify his mother’s unpopularity and indicate his increased leniency now she had gone, he brought back two eminent women, Junia Calvina and Calpurnia (II), and two former praetors, Valerius Capito and Licinius Gabolus, whom she had exiled. He even permitted Lollia Paulina’s ashes to be brought home, and a tomb erected. He also allowed back Junia Silana’s two dependants, Iturius and Calvisius, whom he had recently banished. Silana herself had died at Tarentum, having returned from her distant exile when Agrippina, whose malevolence had struck her down, became less vindictive – or less powerful.

Nero lingered in the cities of Campania. His return to Rome was a worrying problem. Would the senate be obedient? Would the public cheer him? Every bad character (and no court had ever had so many) reassured him that Agrippina was detested, and that her death had increased his popularity. They urged him to enter boldly and see for himself how he was revered. Preceding him – as they had asked to – they found even greater enthusiasm than they had promised. The people marshalled in their tribes were out to meet him, the senators were in their gala clothes, wives and children drawn up in lines by sex and age. Along his route there were tiers of seats as though for a Triumph. Proud conqueror of a servile nation, Nero proceeded to the Capitol and paid his vows.

Then he plunged into the wildest improprieties, which vestiges of respect for his mother had hitherto not indeed repressed, but at least impeded.