Nero Caesar Augustus

Emperor of Rome

David Shotter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317865902
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Propelled to power by the age of 17 by an ambitious mother, self-indulgent to the point of criminality, inadequate, paranoid and the perpetrator of heinous crimes including matricide and fratricide, and deposed and killed by 31, Nero is one of Rome's most infamous Emperors.

But has history treated him fairly? Or is the popular view of Nero as a capricious and depraved individual a travesty of the truth and a gross injustice to Rome's fifth emperor?

This new biography will look at Nero's life with fresh eyes. While showing the man 'warts and all', it also caste a critical eye on the 'libels' which were perpetrated on him, such as claiming he was a madman, many of which were most probably made up to suit the needs of the Flavians, who had overthrown his dynasty.

Chapter One The Political Background to the Reign of Nero

DOI: 10.4324/9781315834788-2

In 31 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus,¹ better known to history as Augustus Caesar, defeated his arch-rival, Marcus Antonius (Marc Antony), at the Battle of Actium, off the west coast of Greece. From what had started twelve years earlier as the Triumvirate of Antonius, Lepidus and Octavian, charged with the task of putting right the problems of the Roman Republic, Octavian was now left as the undisputed master of the Roman world; he put in place the system of government that is usually called the Principate, after the status-title (princeps/‘first citizen’), by which Octavian — or Augustus Caesar, as he was named after 27 BC — preferred to be known.

In so doing, Augustus effectively brought to an end the governmental system that we call the Republic, formed from the Latin words, Res Publica (‘the common concern’).² During the period of the Republic,³ that according to tradition was founded in 509 BC, Rome had grown from a small and embattled city-state to become the mistress of a prospering Empire which encompassed the Mediterranean lands, Asia Minor, as well as much of central and western Europe.

A cornerstone of the Old Republic, as people came to refer to it, was the avoidance in government of dominance (dominatio) by any single individual or group. Three elements were perceived as making up the Republic's government: the annually-elected executive officers (or ‘magistrates’, as the Romans referred to them), of whom the chief were the two consuls. They were kept in check both by the fact that each year there were two of them, and by the tradition, regarded by many as a requirement, that, in carrying out their duties, they should consult the Senate (a body composed largely of former magistrates) during their year of office and, at the end of it, should give an account of their conduct to the People who had elected them.

The Greek historian, Polybius (c. 208–126 BC), who lived in and admired Rome, regarded this interconnection in government between magistrates, Senate and people as the crucial factor in providing the Old Republic with stable government and in preventing the advent of a king-like figure who might attempt to usurp the reins of government.⁴ Indeed, the word, rex (‘king’), was one of the harshest terms of political abuse in Rome during the period of the Old Republic, as can be seen in Julius Caesar's famous declaration that, despite all the power that he came to hold, he was ‘not king, but Caesar’. The only circumstance in which the Republic's constitution was effectively set aside was in the event of a grave emergency, when the annual magistrates could be replaced by a Dictator — but then only for six, or in extremis twelve, months. For Polybius, writing in the tradition of Greek political thought, that embraced Plato and Aristotle, this form of government seemed ideal and stable, because it held in balance the three principal constitution-types of Classical antiquity — monarchy, aristocracy (oligarchy) and democracy. In Rome, the magistrates provided the monarchic element, the Senate the aristocratic, and the people the democratic.

Nowadays, however, it is generally thought that this stability, that was so highly prized, was due less to magistrates, Senate and people representing three equal partners in government than to the fact that the Republic's aristocracy (the nobiles⁵) monopolised the magistracies, formed the Senate and, through a voting-system that favoured the rich and powerful,⁶ dominated the popular assemblies. In reality, then, provided that the voice of the ordinary people was not ignored, the Old Republic was an oligarchy that itself was dominated by a small number of exceedingly powerful families who regarded the Republic as in effect their own property. This was made clear when, in 50–49 BC, Julius Caesar and his rival, Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus),⁷ were propelled into a civil war that neither of them really wanted, and against which the Senate had voted by a margin of 370 votes to twenty-two, only to be railroaded into war by the intransigence of spokesmen for the twenty-two; such, through the agency of the veto of tribunes of the plebeians, was possible in the Roman Republic.

So, what undermined the so-called ‘Polybian balance’ and the stability that it appeared to guarantee? Although many different factors can be isolated, the overarching cause was the growth, from the mid-third century BC, of Rome's overseas Empire. Territories, first in Italy and then overseas, were acquired, more often than not as an accident of successful warfare; overseas, acquired lands were formed into provinces or occasionally left, temporarily at least, under the control of a pro-Roman local ruler. In its early years, Rome was essentially a city-state with interests largely confined to Italy; the new Empire, however, forced upon her an obligation to the overseas provinces to provide good government, as well as maximising the opportunities to exploit the human and material resources provided by the provinces.

The growth of the Empire brought money and slaves into the Roman system at a level previously not contemplated; through these means, individual Romans were able to finance ambitions more extensive than before, whilst the advent of large numbers of slaves generated more leisure-time for aristocratic households, greater profits on the land, and a source of ‘cheap blood’ that could be used to entertain the people in the arenas. Society, thus, moved away from what many Romans, in retrospect at least, saw as the good-old-days, when individual and family values were simple and wholesome and when the family prided itself on its self-sufficiency and respect for Rome's traditions.⁸ In his ‘Roman Odes’,⁹ the Augustan poet, Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) stressed the obligation that rested upon Augustus to revitalise such old values.

However, in the event, the most damaging change that came about as a result of the Empire's growth was the need for a larger, more permanent and better-organised army, that had previously been raised from property-owners on a campaign-basis. The Republic's solution to this, put in place in the late-second century BC, was far from satisfactory: troops continued to be recruited largely for campaigns, but from the whole citizen-body, and thus required settlement-packages on their return to Italy. No automatic provision was made for this other than by army-commanders, who were also Rome's leading politicians, using their weight and influence to secure the best settlement-packages possible. Soldiers were thus thrown inextricably into the arms of their commanders who, in their turn, soon appreciated that they had acquired a new and irresistable weapon in the fulfilment of their political ambitions. Stability, therefore, in the final century of the Old Republic gave way to the near-constant threat of civil war. As the Roman politician and orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero, succinctly put it, ‘faced with armed force, the laws fall silent’.¹⁰

Some, such as Cicero, began to see that the ultimate solution to this — although an unpalatable one, given Roman prejudices against one-man rule — was to entrust the oversight of government to an individual who had sufficient wealth, power and influence to guarantee its continuing integrity and stability. In other words, a king-like figure who was not a king and who could be trusted not to submerge the state in the dangers flowing from his own personal ambitions and from the envy of others. What is more, this had to be done against a background of an army that respected and identified with its general (imperator/‘commander’)¹¹, of a people who required the provision of food and entertainment (‘bread and circuses’), and of a Senate that, whilst not totally opposed to change, was sensitively mindful of its traditional rôle and privileges, and thus fit to play a leading and responsible part in the Republic.

Cicero frequently¹² looked for a state of affairs in which all ‘good men’ (the boni, as he called them) would come together as a ‘Union’ (consensus bonorum). On occasions, he appears to have thought of this within the historical context of the second century BC, with Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus as the leading figure (moderator); on other occasions, he appeared to be thinking more specifically of his own times, when Pompey would save the Republic as the moderator, with Cicero himself as his chief supporter and adviser.¹³

The achievement of such a consensus represented an extremely difficult challenge, particularly in a Republic in which politicians were traditionally obsessed with the acquisition of personal glory and success that were ‘worthy of their ancestors’. Cicero's moderator would need to be extraordinarily modest and self-effacing to be able to carry through the rôle that Cicero seems to have had in mind. So who might undertake such an overarching rôle? The list of failed attempts to create harmony and stability had grown during the turbulent years of the first century BC, prominent amongst them Sulla,¹⁴ Pompey and Caesar. Could Caesar's great-nephew and adopted son, the future Augustus, succeed? Although an early career, marred by bloodshed, thuggery and dissimulation, hardly appeared promising, Augustus Caesar emerged as one of those people who, through a combination of realism and spin, managed to reinvent himself — to outward appearances, at least.

It was fortunate for him that his chief rival, Antony, decided — albeit for reasons that were, for him, perfectly logical¹⁵ — to leave Rome and base himself in the East, lured there by the charm, but also by the wealth, of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. Such orientalising never went down well with Rome's traditionalist aristocracy; Nero, too, was to discover the reality and the danger of this. Augustus was, therefore, able conveniently to present himself as the defender and upholder of the time-honoured traditions of the Roman West. By so doing, he gathered around himself men from a variety of backgrounds, most of whom combined loyalty to him with effective conduct. Such a man was Marcus Agrippa, Nero's great-grandfather; it was Agrippa who effectively won the battle of Actium for the young Caesar.

Again, the deaths of both Antony and Cleopatra in 30 BC and the deaths or disgrace of many of their supporters left the future Augustus without obvious rivals for power; as Tacitus put it, ‘the Julians had no leader but Caesar’.¹⁶ Many of the great aristocratic families were lulled by Augustus' own blood-connection with the Julian family, and the fact that his wife, Livia Drusilla,¹⁷ came from the heart of that aristocracy made him appear convincing as one of them in head and heart. In fact, they had little option: Actium left Augustus as de facto head of the whole army and, in popular eyes, the only man who could prevent a return to the uncertainties and dangers of civil bloodshed. Beyond this, Augustus knew that, whilst public relief after Actium might provide him with a ‘honeymoon period’, he had to deliver on stability and prosperity and he had to show that, in essence, he was restoring, not destroying, the Republic. Politics and personal inclination demanded reform, but reform that was firmly embedded in Rome's traditions.¹⁸

There is no doubt that, during the half-century that separated the victory at Actium from Augustus' death in AD 14, the princeps had his hands firmly on the levers of control. His reform of the army, making it permanent, well-paid, loyal to him as its commander and reliant on him as the provider of its retirement-gratuities, was the key to this. However, by placing the army in groups in the frontier-provinces and delegating day-to-day control of it to men whom he trusted, he avoided the appearance of overbearing control on his part, although the esprit de corps that was engendered in these groups, with their local loyalties, was to have dire consequences by the end of Nero's reign.¹⁹ Augustus, then, guaranteed the army's rewards and ensured that its commanders were men loyal to him. The fact that each year was inaugurated with oaths of allegiance to Rome, Jupiter and the army's imperator not only guaranteed Augustus’ continuing supremacy, but also placed him into a totally traditional context. Even the nine thousand troops who made up the Praetorian Guard (imperial bodyguard) were barracked in small units outside, rather than in, Rome, and thus did not obtrude upon the popular consciousness. In terms of appearance, however, it was a mistake, although perhaps an inevitable one, on the part of Tiberius to yield to the arguments of Lucius Aelius Sejanus, his Prefect of the Guard, that he should barrack the Praetorians together in Rome itself.²⁰

The actual powers that Augustus held were rooted in the traditions of the past; writing of his power-base in this renewed Republic, Augustus said: ‘I excelled all in auctoritas, but of powers I possessed no more than my colleagues in the several magistracies’.²¹Auctoritas (prestige), however, was all-important, and Augustus possessed it by virtue both of his achievement of ridding Rome of civil war and of his descent from the aristocratic Julian family (gens Iulia). All of the Julio-Claudian Emperors who followed him enjoyed auctoritas by virtue of their descent from Augustus and the Julian and Claudian families. The significance of this is emphasised by the experience of Vespasian, who came to power in AD 69 and who obviously enjoyed respect for his achievements. However, he lacked auctoritas because of the fact that he was not descended from a senatorial family — a point that was not lost on some of those in the Senate.²² Thus, at the beginning of his reign, Vespasian needed to set about acquiring his own auctoritas and in this way to compensate for family-origins that were regarded as inadequate.²³

Whilst cynics might carp at the plurality of Augustus' powers,²⁴ he could point out that his tenures of office all respected the traditional principle of accountability that had been a corner-stone of libertas in the Old Republic.²⁵Libertas (freedom), indeed, was a concept indissolubly associated with the Old Republic; in practice, its application during the period of the Republic had been chiefly directed to the interests of the governing (senatorial) class and their ability to pursue their political careers without hindrance from others.

Augustus was wise enough to leave in place the old offices of state, such as the consulship, and to keep them subject to annual election, although the exercise of authority in these posts was, in practical terms, reined in by the Emperor's own powers. However, he recognised the importance of leaving open to men the ability to rise through the tiers of office (cursus honorum), an aspect of libertas for which, in the Old Republic, men had been prepared to go to war and even to lay down their lives. Nonetheless, Augustus and his successors ensured that they retained a measure of control over the outcome of elections.²⁶ At the same time, however, the fact that the security of public and personal life in Rome so clearly depended upon the auctoritas and continued presence of Augustus allowed these offices of state to be used by him to manage Rome and the Empire along the lines that he desired.

Similarly important in the Augustan Repu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Photographic Plates
• List of Coins
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The Quest for Nero: The Principal Sources
• Chapter 1 The Political Background to the Reign of Nero
• Chapter 2 Nero’s Family
• Chapter 3 The Path to Power
• Chapter 4 The Expectation and Hope of all the World
• Chapter 5 The End of the Beginning
• Chapter 6 Nero and the Empire
• Chapter 7 The Imperial Builder
• Chapter 8 The Beginning of the End
• Chapter 9 Rebellion and the Fall of Nero
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1: Principal Dates relating to the Life and Reign of Nero
• Appendix 2: The Distribution of Roman Legions in the Mid-First Century AD
• Appendix 3: Glossary of Latin Terms
• Appendix 4: Further Sources of Information for Nero’s Life and Reign
• Notes
• Abbreviations
• Bibliography
• General Index
• Index of Persons and Divinities