The Great Fire of Rome: The Fall of the Emperor Nero and His City

by Dando-Collins, Stephen

  In a Pauline letter, 1 Corinthians, written from Rome during this period, Paul referred to Christians in Caesar’s household. A Christian tradition holds that one was Torpes, “an officer of prime note in Nero’s palace,” while Dio Chrysostom claimed that Nero’s cup-bearer and one of his concubines were also converts.6 One tradition holds that this concubine was the emperor’s mistress Acte. “This Acte,” wrote Cassius Dio, “had been bought as a slave in Asia, but winning the affections of Nero, was adopted into the family of Attalus, and the emperor loved her much more than he did his wife Octavia.”7

  Nero had at one time thought about making Acte his wife, and her adoption by a Roman family was intended to make her more acceptable marriage material, but Nero’s mother, Agrippina the Younger, put her foot down and refused to permit any such union. Acte would remain loyal to Nero for the rest of his life. The story of her conversion to Christianity seems to stem from a more recent source, the nineteenth-century novel Quo Vadis. Whether or not Paul did convert Torpe, Acte, and the cup-bearer to Christianity, Acts reveals that Paul was less successful in converting the Jews of Rome.

  When Joseph had traveled to Rome from Judea in AD 63, he too had survived a shipwreck; his overloaded vessel went down in the Adriatic at night. More than five hundred passengers and crew had drowned around him in the darkness. When dawn broke next day, Joseph was one of just eighty plucked from the water by another merchant ship. Joseph had come ashore when this merchantman docked at Puteoli on the bay of Naples, then Italy’s largest commercial port. He quickly made contact with the local Jewish community, which put him in touch with a Jewish stage actor named Aliturius, who was, to Joseph’s good fortune, “much beloved by Nero.”8 Through the good offices of Aliturius, Joseph would eventually receive an introduction to Nero’s wife, the empress Poppaea Sabina.

  Poppaea, a noted beauty who reputedly bathed in asses’ milk, came from a noble bloodline including consuls and triumphant generals; although her father, a quaestor, had been executed by Tiberius as an adherent of Sejanus, and her mother had been punished for adultery. Poppaea, who was several years older than Nero, had been married twice before. Her first husband was Rufius Crispinus, an Equestrian, while the second had been Nero’s best friend, Marcus Salvius Otho.

  According to historian Plutarch, Poppaea had been seduced by Otho when she was still married to Crispinus, and Otho had convinced her to divorce Crispinus and marry him, after which he had offered to share her with Nero to further win Nero’s favor.9 Tacitus told a slightly different story: Poppaea, attracted by his “youth and fashionable elegance” and by his closeness to the boy emperor, had seduced Otho, then divorced Crispinus and married him. But, said Tacitus, her sights were on Nero, and she convinced Otho to allow Nero to share her bed, to add to his own influence with the emperor.10

  There is a third version: According to Suetonius, Nero fell for Poppaea when she was married to Crispinus, and the emperor entrusted Otho with the task of marrying Poppaea for the time being, until Nero could rid himself of his wife Octavia and overbearing mother Agrippina, who was determined that Nero and Octavia would produce an heir with pure Julian blood. All three, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius, agreed that Otho had fallen in love with Poppaea and soon began to begrudge sharing her. “He not only enjoyed Poppaea, but developed such a deep passion for her that he would not tolerate even Nero as a rival,” said Suetonius. “We have every reason to believe the story that he rebuffed, first, the messengers sent by Nero to fetch Poppaea, and then Nero himself, who was left on the wrong side of the bedroom door, alternately threatening and pleading for the lady.”11

  According to Plutarch, Poppaea had enjoyed making both men jealous and even excluded Nero from her bedroom from time to time even when Otho was not around, to maintain his enthusiasm for her.12 Tacitus said that she also wanted Nero to dispense with Acte, to whom he was extremely attached, deriding the relationship between emperor and former slave, as “low and degrading.”13 When Otho refused to continue sharing Poppaea and tried to keep her all to himself, Nero first cut him from his circle of intimates and then appointed him governor of the province of Lusitania, modern-day Portugal, well away from Rome. When, in AD 58, Otho set off to take up his appointment, his wife remained at Rome, to warm the emperor’s bed. Otho had remained in Lusitania ever since, showing himself a capable governor.

  For several subsequent years, Poppaea had been Nero’s mistress, until she convinced him to divorce Octavia (whom he had married at the age of sixteen) for her inability to give him an heir. Divorce for Romans was an easy matter, with either party able to declare the marriage terminated, without formalities. Poppaea had divorced Otho, and just sixteen days after Nero divorced Octavia, he and Poppaea were married. It was not long before the new empress was able to orchestrate, with the help of Tigellinus, the accusations of adulterous behavior that led to young Octavia’s execution.

  Poppaea had promised Nero that she would bear him an heir, and sure enough, she was soon pregnant with his child. Early in AD 63, at Antium, where Nero himself had been born, Poppaea gave birth to a daughter, Claudia Augusta. Nero was ecstatic and seemed not to mind that Poppaea had failed to give him a son. Almost every senator flocked to Antium to congratulate Nero on the birth, and the Senate had decreed numerous celebrations and commemorations. Four months later, baby Claudia Augusta was dead, from illness, and Nero was devastated.

  Charming, witty, and politically astute, never allowing her heart to rule her head, Poppaea was, according to Joseph, a deeply religious woman who looked favorably on Jews. She soon took a liking to the personable, bearded young priest from Jerusalem. For his part, Joseph kept from the empress the real purpose of his trip to Italy. He set about building a rapport with her during social occasions and, over time, would receive numerous gifts from her. At the appropriate moment, he would seek a favor, asking that she intercede with Nero on behalf of the Jewish priests awaiting their appeals, and procure their liberty.

  For now, supported financially from Judea, Joseph continued to rent accommodations at Rome, mixing with the Jews of the capital, biding his time, and building his relationship with Nero’s clever, domineering wife.

  X

  THE LAKE BANQUET

  June 7. The days were lengthening, the sun strengthening; summer was just weeks away.

  Nero, like his great-uncle Caligula before him, had developed a fascination with all things Egyptian. He had investigated the religion of the Egyptians and, for a time following the murder of his mother, had embraced the worship of the Egyptian mother goddess Isis and her consort Sarapis, even integrating feast days of the cult of Isis into the official Roman religious calendar. He longed to visit Egypt, and after terminating his trip to Achaia at Beneventum and returning to the capital, he had spent much time over the remaining weeks and months of the spring back at Rome “dwelling in his secret imaginations on the provinces of the East, especially Egypt,” according to Tacitus.1 Germanicus Caesar, grandfather of Nero and father of Caligula, had been equally fascinated with Egypt. When Roman commander in chief in the East, he had traveled up the Nile as an unescorted tourist on a private visit to the ruins from the age of the pharaohs, using a local priest as his guide.

  As the spring passed, Nero had decided that this summer, instead of retiring to some rural or seaside villa as was his custom, he would sail to Alexandria and visit the antiquities of Egypt. Ordering preparations made for his departure, he issued a proclamation this first week of June. He announced his Egyptian trip, declaring that he would not be absent from Rome long and that “all things in the State would remain unchanged and prosperous” while he was away.2

  Now, early in the morning, prior to attending a ceremony at the Temple of Vesta, Nero visited the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Mount. There, he made sacrifices and sought good omens and an indication of the most auspicious departure date. Nero then came down to the Forum and entered the Temple of Vesta. This was the first day of the seven-day Vestalia, the annual Fes
tival of Vesta. The vestal virgins had been preparing for months, even personally baking countless salty wheat cakes for the banquets that formed part of the festivities. The festival, the holiest time of the year for the vestals, was to commence with a simple ceremony here at the circular temple that housed the eternal flame.

  As the emperor entered the Temple of Vesta, where the vestals awaited him in their white vestments, his cloak became caught, holding him back, and then he felt a trembling sensation all over his body. As he was carried in a litter back to the Palatium, he decided these were signs that he should not leave Rome. He quickly released a new announcement, advising that he was canceling his trip to Egypt, because, he said, love of his country came before his personal plans. “I have seen the sad countenances of the citizens,” his latest proclamation declared. “I heard their secret complaints at the prospect of my undertaking such a long journey, when they cannot bear even my briefest excursions, accustomed as they are to being cheered in their misfortunes by the sight of the emperor. Therefore, as in private relationships, the closest ties are the strongest, so the people of Rome have the most powerful claims and must be obeyed in their wish to retain me.”3

  This announcement was well received by the general public. The people felt more secure when the emperor was among them than when he was away, said Tacitus, not the least because they felt confident that while he was at Rome, he would never allow their grain supply to become scarce. As for the members of the Senate and other leading citizens, Tacitus wrote that they were not sure whether to regard Nero as more threatening while he was among them or while he was away.4

  The Vestalia brought with it obligations for the state to provide public banquets during the week of June 7-14. While these free meals throughout the city were for the general populace, Praetorian Prefect Tigellinus had proposed to Nero that this year, he would personally finance a grand Vestalia banquet for the nobility. Tigellinus’ sudden and uncharacteristic generosity might be put down to his nervousness about Nero’s reluctance to leave him in charge at Rome while traveling outside Italy. Certainly, Nero’s indication that he would have given clemency to Silanus had he not committed suicide strongly hinted at his displeasure over the way that affair had been handled. Tigellinus’ offer, designed to cement his position as Nero’s most trusted official, was approved.

  Tigellinus’ banquet was a novel and extravagant affair. There was a body of water on the Campus Martius known as Agrippa’s Lake. Marcus Agrippa, Nero’s maternal great-grandfather, had personally funded a large complex for the use and pleasure of the public, involving expansive gardens, a basilica, and this lake, which was linked to the Tiber River by a small canal. On this lake, Tigellinus had a large raft constructed. Small rowing craft that shone with gold and ivory were launched onto the lake and tethered to the raft like horses to a carriage.

  In the late afternoon of the day of Tigellinus’ banquet, the emperor and other official guests arrived and stepped onto the richly decorated raft. Among the guests, apart from Nero and his empress Poppaea, would have been all the usual dignitaries: the consuls Laecanius and Licinius, whose terms, which Nero limited to six months, would soon end; the twenty praetors for the year; Water Commissioner Marius and his fellow commissioners for grain, the streets, and the sewers; a score or more of former consuls, including Vespasian, Petronius Arbiter, and Cluvius Rufus; City Prefect Sabinus; numerous former praetors; other leading senators; the rival Praetorian prefects, Faenius Rufus and the day’s host, Tigellinus. Probably, too, there were special guests in the party who had connections at the Palatium, men such as Joseph, the Jewish priest visiting from Judea.

  Rowers in the small boats strained at their oars and dragged the raft around the lake. To the delight of some guests and the consternation of others, the lake had been populated with “sea monsters” such as crocodiles and birds from remote lands. On one shoreline, pavilions had been set up, where noble ladies crowded. The sign of the brothel, showing erect penises, hanging outside these pavilions and facing the lake would have made it perfectly clear to those on the raft what the pavilions were supposed to represent.

  It is unclear whether the noble ladies knew about the signs. Had they not, and had they simply answered an invitation to assemble at the lakeside pavilions, this would have been a huge joke at their expense—a crude joke contrived by Tigellinus. Meanwhile, on the opposite shoreline, Tigellinus had installed genuine prostitutes, all quite naked, who made obscene gestures and movements as the raft passed slowly by. As the sun set west of the Tiber, the grove in the Gardens of Agrippa and the surrounding public buildings glowed with artificial light and resounded to the sounds of music and song. There at the gardens, the highly amused guests disembarked to dine.

  Several days later, in a private ceremony witnessed by only his most intimate associates, Nero went through a mock wedding ceremony with a Greek freedman named Pythagoras, with Nero playing the part of the bride, complete with traditional orange marriage veil. That night, Nero and Pythagoras “honeymooned” together.

  XI

  THE CHARIOTEER

  The July heat beat down on the paving stones of Rome. The city streets were all but deserted. All public business had ceased. Downtown, shops were closed. Soldiers of the City Cohorts patrolled in squads, their helmets and armor shining in the sun and the hobnails of their military sandals crunching on the stone, as they kept a wary eye open for thieves and other wrongdoers trying to take advantage of the quiet. From the distance, beyond the Palatine Hill, a spine-chilling roar rose up on the morning air.

  For weeks, the elite of the city had been flocking to the seaside, the countryside, and the hills to escape the summer heat. They were joined at their villas by family, friends, and clients. Only the members of the nobility whose official duties kept them in the city remained. The Roman commoners had no such ability to leave the city for a country seat in the summer or at any other time. To survive, they had no choice but to continue to earn a living at Rome. But at least the commoners had diversions to look forward to. The greatest diversions of all came during July, when there were two major ludi, or religious festivals. The first festival ran for seven days early in the month, the second for ten days at the end of the month, and each culminated in chariot races at the circus.

  By July 13, the Ludi Apollinares had been running at the capital for a week. Dedicated to Apollo, god of music, song, and dance and protector of flocks, the festival had been celebrated at the Circus Maximus. There had been horse races and drama, mime, and song contests. How Nero had longed to take part, but he knew that it was too soon. First, he must win the laurels in Greece, as he had originally planned, before coming out in public at Rome as a singer.

  Now, this last day of the games, Nero sat in the tribunal judicum, the judges’ box, at the Circus Maximus, cheering for the Greens. Most Romans were lifelong supporters of one racing factio, or team, or another. There were four racing factions, the Greens, the Blues, the Whites, and the Reds, each controlled by a corporation. These corporations were vast business enterprises, operating stable complexes, training schools, stud farms, and even their own fleets of ships for transporting horses around the provinces. They owned hundreds of thousands of horses; their horse buyers even had preference over the army when it came to purchasing horseflesh. Racing corporation stock was frequently passed down from father to son.

  Romans supported a particular faction all their lives, and on racing day, they turned up at the circus wearing flowers, ribbons, and scarves in the color of their teams. Around Nero this June day, a crowd of more than 200,000 people swelled, all sporting red and white and blue and green. Hundreds of years before, the long, thin, U-shaped Circus Maximus had been created, southwest of the Palatine Hill, its sides built of stone arcades atop which rose massive tiers of seating. Those tiers were built entirely of wood. The Circus Maximus was, and remains to this day, the largest wooden structure ever built. The following century, it would be enlarged even further, to accommodate an estimated 3
00,000-plus spectators, making it also the largest sporting stadium ever erected.

  From dawn till dusk, the chariots raced. In Augustus’ time, there were twelve races a day; Caligula, a huge fan of chariot racing, had increased the number to twenty-four. Just four chariots took part in each race, representing each of the factions. Some ludi featured two-horse teams. Occasionally, five-, six-, and even ten-horse teams raced. But the four-horse chariot, the quadriga, was the standard racing chariot. Of its four horses, the central pair were yoked, but the two outer horses were only in traces. The left horse, the one that ran closest to the spine of the course, was the team’s most important and most valuable, for this horse’s cornering skill determined the course of the chariot, and of the race. The outside horse was the next most important, while the two central horses were there for their pulling power.

  The Roman charioteer was the rock star of his age, even more celebrated than the gladiator. Most charioteers came to the track as slaves, some as freedmen. Many became famous and rich. A number died on the track or later, from race injuries. The corporations split the race prize money equally with the winning drivers and paid them bonuses. Drivers also received gifts from their many admirers and won and lost vast amounts wagering on races—their own and others. Unlike dice throwing, but like gladiatorial fighting, chariot racing was considered a contest of skill, and so betting on races was legal.

  Fifty provincial cities were authorized by the emperor to erect hippodromes and conduct chariot races, but the races at the capital generated the most interest. Results from Circus Maximus races were eagerly sought throughout the empire, and Rome’s handwritten daily newspaper, the Acta diurna—since its inception by Julius Caesar in 59 BC distributed to all corners of the Roman world—contained the latest race results.