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

by Dando-Collins, Stephen

  Parthians were famed for their skills as archers. Their horse archers had perfected a technique, called the Parthian shot, whereby a horseman would turn and fire back over the rump of his horse with devastating accuracy as he rode away from his opponents, just when they thought he was retreating. This, some claim, was the origin of the term that we use today: a parting shot. All Parthian nobles were taught how to ride and shoot from an early age, and it turned out that Tiridates had been an excellent student and was a crack shot with the bow. “If one can believe it,” Cassius Dio wrote, Tiridates was said to have “transfixed and killed two bulls with a single arrow” there in the Puteoli arena.5

  Following the Puteoli games, the massive combined cavalcade continued up the Appian way, with reportedly no less than a thousand vehicles in the train. Around Nero himself rode the Mazacian cavalry, their outriders jingling with bracelets and medallions. Word had been sent to Rome that the cavalcade was nearing the capital, and “all Rome rushed out to welcome the emperor and see the king.”6 Among the throng were all those members of the Senate who were not traveling in Nero’s entourage, with one exception—Thrasea Paetus, the leading senator under threat of prosecution at the forthcoming Senate session, for, on Nero’s orders, he was banned from leaving the city.

  The procession came up the Via Appia, passing the tombs of noble Romans and entering Rome through the Capena Gate. Moving along city streets lined with a cheering multitude held back by the troops of the Praetorian, City, and German Cohorts, who all hailed their emperor as he passed by, a smiling, waving Nero acknowledged the reception as the king took in all the splendor of the city at the center of the world. They made their way to the Golden House, Nero’s vast, near-completed new palace.

  In the twenty months since the Great Fire, the palace and its astonishing gardens had risen where blackened rubble had once lain. The Circus Maximus had been rebuilt in timber, at the expense of numerous forests in distant provinces, while two-thirds of the city of Rome had been entirely rebuilt in stone. The temples and public buildings were restored. New, wider streets replaced the former rabbit warrens of streets that had characterized old Rome. Colonnades and public squares equipped with water basins had appeared in the rebuilt residential areas. It was a new city and a more beautiful one than the old, Tacitus observed.7 There were still large numbers of workers, slave and free, employed in construction and restoration work, which would continue for a time yet, but the majority of the work had been done. To the eyes of the easterners, new Rome must have been breathtaking.

  Numerous buildings had been decorated with garlands, incidentally to welcome the emperor and the king, but also in preparation for the Megalesia, the annual seven-day festival dedicated to the Magna Mater, or Great Mother, the goddess Cybele. Running from April 4, just a few days away, the festival would this year showcase the greatness of Rome for the benefit of King Tiridates and his party.

  That night, oil-fired lights glowed throughout the city, illuminating the shining marble, gold, and precious stones adorning the temples and palaces. Teams of slaves worked through the night, completing temporary wooden grandstands erected along two sides of the Forum Romanum. Yet, Suetonius wrote, the day fixed by Neronian edict for the ceremony in which Tiridates would swear allegiance to Nero—that is, the day before the commencement of the Megalesia Festival—dawned overcast and gray. The omens were not good. The ceremony was postponed for a day.

  The sky that night was clear, presaging a fine day next morning. Well before dawn, vast crowds flooded to the Forum and its surrounds. The lucky ones had invitations; the spectators were arranged according to their rank, from Equestrians at the front to freedmen at the back. Clad in white and each holding a laurel branch, symbol of victory, they occupied the stands in the Forum. The ordinary people had clambered onto rooftops all around to obtain a view of the proceedings. The spectators were so thick on the roofs, said Dio, that “the very roof tiles of all the buildings in the vicinity were completely hidden from sight.”8

  As the sun rose, thousands of Praetorians could be seen lining the Forum in front of the stands; the soldiers stood “fully armed” with shields and javelins, in neat ranks. The troops were equipped “in shining armor,” said Dio, “their weapons and standards flashing like lightning,” bolts of lightning being the motif that the Praetorian Cohorts sported on their shields.9 The standard-bearers of each cohort and of each maniple—the Roman military subunit equivalent to a modern-day company—gathered on the raised Rostra at the northern end of the Forum.

  Their standards varied from the Praetorians’ golden statuette of Victoria to the raised silver hand of each Praetorian maniple. The animal figures of the German Cohort standards, too, were represented. A small forest of close to a hundred standards would have been arrayed on the Rostra in the hands of their proud standard-bearers, the Praetorian standard-bearers wearing lion-skin capes, with lions’ heads perched atop their helmets.

  As the sun rose into the clear morning sky, trumpets sounded. The people in the stands came to their feet and waited in expectant silence. From the vestibule of the Golden House, Nero emerged. He again wore the garb of a triumphant—tunic, cloak, and mural crown. He was accompanied by the consuls for the year, one of whom was Suetonius Paulinus, who, as governor of Britain, had put down Boudicca’s Revolt six years previously. Next came the prefects, including the Praetorian prefects Tigellinus and Nymphidius and the city prefect Flavius Sabinus. Then came all the magistrates for the year, the praetors and the quaestors, followed by all the commissioners, including the new water commissioner, Fonteius Agrippa, who had been a consul at the time of the murder of Agrippina the Younger in AD 59. Hundreds of senators fell in behind, notable exceptions being the accused men Thrasea and Soranus.

  Thrasea had written to Nero, demanding to know the charges against him and asserting that he would be able to clear himself if he were informed of the supposed crimes of which he was accused and given an opportunity to refute the charges. “Nero eagerly received this note,” hoping that Thrasea had incriminated himself in it or even perhaps confessed his crime. But the emperor was disappointed to find that Thrasea’s carefully composed request for a meeting contained neither incrimination nor confession. Afraid of both the glower and “the defiant independence” of Thrasea—in the opinion of Tacitus—Nero refused to grant the senator the requested audience; he would let the Senate decide the matter.10

  Through the Forum strode the young ruler of the Roman world, the single most powerful man on earth, before climbing the curved stairs at the rear of the Rostra and taking his seat on a chair of state. Flanking him were his senior officials, with the military standards and their bearers forming a glittering backdrop. The senators massed below the Rostra. A signal was now given for King Tiridates to make his appearance. From the Golden House, where he and his party had been staying, Tiridates, his wife, and his sons and nephews entered the Forum and walked between the silent ranks of Praetorians, with the eyes of the spectators following their every step.

  Tiridates and his family members halted in front of the Rostra. This was the same Rostra from which Mark Antony had given his famous speech on the day of Julius Caesar’s funeral. For today’s ceremony, a temporary ramp had been built fronting the Rostra. On Tiridates’ cue, he and his wife, sons, and nephews dropped to their knees and repeated the same form of obeisance that Tiridates had observed on his first meeting with the Roman emperor, crossing their arms and bowing low.

  A great approving roar rose up from the surrounding crowd. Tiridates was seen to look fearfully around the crowd, which was now abuzz with conversation. It was as if the king suddenly feared the fate of so many enemy leaders who had been led through the streets of Rome in years past in the Triumph of one conquering general or another—execution with the halter. Such a fate was contrary to the treaty that Tiridates had agreed to with Nero’s general Corbulo, the treaty that had terminated the war for Armenia and guaranteed Tiridates the Armenian throne in return for his pledge
of allegiance to Nero.

  Tiridates would have been told that Corbulo’s son-in-law Annius Vinicianus had been sent by the general to Rome to make the arrangements for this ceremony. Vinicianus was, Tiridates knew, well liked by Nero, who had approved the young man’s appointment as a legatus legionis prior to his reaching senatorial age, a rare honor. That appointment had permitted Vinicianus to join his fatherin-law’s army and take command of the 5th Macedonica Legion during Corbulo’s last campaign in Armenia, against Tiridates and his Parthian and Armenian troops. But now, Tiridates was literally in the lion’s den, and his fate was entirely in Nero’s hands.

  The duty tribune of the Praetorian Cohorts, the day’s narrator, called for quiet. The audience obediently fell silent. Nero beckoned the king. Tiridates came to his feet and, alone, climbed the ramp to the Rostra, where he again prostrated himself, this time at Nero’s feet. Nero now reached out a hand and “drew him to his feet, and kissed him.”11

  Tiridates then addressed a speech to Nero in his native tongue, which was translated aloud into Latin by a former praetor. “Master, I am the descendant of Arsaces, brother of the kings Vologases and Pacorus, and your slave. I have come to you, my god, to worship you as I worship Mithras. The destiny that you spin for me shall be mine, for you are my Fortune and my Fate.”12

  Nero replied, with his words translated for Tiridates’ benefit, “You have done well to come here in person, so that in meeting me face to face you might enjoy my grace. For what neither your father left you nor your brothers gave and preserved for you, this I do grant to you. King of Armenia I now declare you, that both you, and they …” he cast his hand around the crowd, “may understand that I have the power to take away kingdoms and to bestow them.”13

  With that, as Tiridates bowed his head, Nero took the turban from the king’s head and replaced it with a crown held out to him by an aide. The crowd erupted into cheers and applause. To the minds of many ordinary Romans, this was Nero Caesar’s finest hour.

  This was the first day of the Megalesia Festival. At dawn that morning, the priests of Magna Mater had offered herbs to the goddess at her temple and flailed themselves until they bled. Now, they bore a statue of Cybele through the streets of the city, accompanied by tambourine and cymbal players. The statue was set up in the Theater of Pompey, and once Nero and the king had departed the Forum, the people left their vantage points and hurried across the city and out the northern gates onto the Campus Martius, to find seats in the theater.

  By special imperial decree, today’s theatrical performances were to honor the emperor and his crowning of the king, and for this event, the theater’s already impressive stage had been gilded, as had much of the interior of the theater. All the furniture and fittings on the imperial tribunal likewise shone with gold. Over the heads of those in the imperial box hung a sunscreen of purple cloth embroidered in gold with the figure of Nero driving a chariot and with golden stars gleaming all around him. The bedazzled people who attended the theater on this day would forever after refer to it as a “golden day.”14

  A little later, first Nero and then Tiridates arrived at the theater. On gaining the tribunal, Tiridates again prostrated himself at Nero’s feet. Then, at the emperor’s bidding, he occupied the seat immediately on the emperor’s right. Together, they watched the day’s performances of mime, tragedy, and music, every now and then indulging in chitchat. At one point, the name of Corbulo, Nero’s conquering general, came up. “Master, you have in Corbulo a good slave,” Tiridates remarked.15

  That evening, Nero and Tiridates sat down to an expensive official banquet attended by Rome’s leading citizens. Following the banquet, for the king’s entertainment, Nero took up the lyre and sang. And later, apparently at his private Vatican circus, Nero showed off his chariot-driving expertise to Tiridates, wearing the racing tunic of the Greens and the full outfit of a circus charioteer. According to Dio, Tiridates was privately disgusted by the emperor’s singing and chariot driving, reportedly commenting that the only fault he found in Nero’s general Corbulo was that the general could put up with such a master.16

  Yet, if these genuinely were Tiridates’ sentiments, they seem not to have reached the ears of his brother, Vologases, the Parthian king. As later events would demonstrate, Vologases’ respect for Nero, and even his awe of him, would not diminish over the next few years. Nero had several times issued an invitation for Vologases to similarly bring himself to Rome. Vologases, no doubt suspicious of entrapment on Italian soil, had excused himself by saying that, unlike Nero, he did not possess mighty fleets of warships via which he might traverse the oceans. The Parthian king had suggested that both rulers leave their respective capitals and meet halfway, in Asia Minor. But this did not interest Nero.

  The entertainment that Tiridates witnessed during the Megalesian Games included the pancratium, a contest of ancient Greek origin and an Olympic Games event, combining boxing and wrestling. Contestants stripped naked. After anointing their bodies with oil as part of their religious observances, they cast sand over their bare, oiled skin, to allow their opponents to literally come to grips with them. No holds were barred. The clenched fist could be used, although the hands were not strapped as in straight boxing contests and so were less lethal. Feet could also be used. The ultimate offensive move was the stranglehold, and if the man on the receiving end did not give up, he could and would die from strangulation. Locked in a hold or seriously injured, a competitor could surrender the contest by raising one finger.

  It was perfectly legitimate for a standing competitor to strike a fallen opponent. Tiridates, on seeing this, was horrified. He exclaimed, “It’s not fair that a man who has fallen should be struck.”17

  This greatly amused his hosts. It was the Roman way. In life, as in the pancratium, a fallen adversary was fair game. Many who had been implicated in the plots against Nero over the past two years had found this to be the case. Thrasea and Soranus were about to learn the very same lesson. The Megalesia Festival ended with a day of chariot racing in the rebuilt Circus Maximus, with Nero and Tiridates among the excited spectators.

  Nero had enjoyed showing off to his new royal vassal and was amenable to granting Tiridates a favor. During Corbulo’s first campaign in Armenia, his legions had leveled the Armenian capital, Artaxata, in the northeast of the country. Corbulo had taken the city without a fight, but, deciding that it was too remote to successfully defend, had ordered the city’s population to evacuate to the southwest, then had his troops destroy the riverside metropolis stone by stone. Tiridates now asked Nero for permission to rebuild the city, sugaring his request with the promise that he would give the restored capital of Armenia the name of Neronia, in honor of Nero. Not surprisingly, Nero agreed to the request. The city would indeed be rebuilt and named Neronia.

  More than that, Nero also offered Tiridates the services of a number of artisans who had been working on the rebuilding of Rome following the Great Fire. Stonemasons, carpenters, artists who painted the wall frescoes—these craftsmen were not slaves but paid freedmen or peregrines, noncitizens, very often of Greek background, who had come to Rome specifically to work on the city’s restoration. While Nero was generous with his offer of artisans, he retained those men who were needed for the remaining work in Rome. Tiridates not only accepted the men offered by Nero, but also secretly sent his agents around the artisans’ camps at Rome and recruited more, offering them higher pay than they were receiving from Nero. But Tiridates would be outwitted. When these workmen reached Cappadocia on their way to Armenia with Tiridates, Nero’s general Corbulo would only permit those men authorized by Nero to work in Armenia to enter the country.

  Nero also provided Tiridates with sea transport for part of the king’s return journey. When he left Rome within days of the conclusion of the Megalesia, Tiridates traveled down the Appian Way all the way to Brundisium, where he and his party would board ships of Rome’s Adriatic Fleet to cross the Straits of Otranto to Dyrrhachium, modern-day Durres, in A
lbania. From there, Tiridates’ cavalcade would continue overland along the Agnatian Way through Macedonia. After crossing the Dardanelles, Tiridates progressed through the grand cities of Asia Minor, which would serve, said Cassius Dio, “to increase his amazement at the strength and beauty of the Roman Empire.”18

  As soon as the Megalesia Festival was over, even before Tiridates departed Rome in the middle of April, the consuls’ lictors were on the city streets, conveying a message that called on members of the Senate to sit the next day. At the top of the senators’ agenda were the charges against Thrasea and Soranus. In the wake of this summons, worried friends of Thrasea rushed to his residence to offer conflicting advice. Some urged him to appear in the House and defend himself, even though the consensus was that Nero was determined to see a guilty verdict returned.

  “Posterity would at least distinguish between the memory of an honorable death and the cowardice of those who perished in silence,” said the pessimists.19

  Others among Thrasea’s friends recommended that he stay at home, to maintain his proud record and avoid the insults and mockeries that would be thrown at him by his accusers. There was even a suggestion that some people might resort to violence against Thrasea, or for him, if he put in an appearance, and they begged him to spare the Senate such a scene. These men feared that if violence did break out, Thrasea would be blamed, and Nero would also punish his wife and family.

  One of Thrasea’s clients, an enthusiastic but impetuous young tribune of the Plebeians by the name of Rusticus Arulenus, offered to make an official protest against any sentence imposed on Thrasea by the Senate. Thrasea felt this would be futile, as he was convinced that the majority of senators would fall into line with what they believed Nero wanted and would convict their fellow senator. Arulenus’ protest would, Thrasea was convinced, prove useless to him and potentially fatal to the young tribune.