The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
to the senatorial party, his declaration of rebellion took the form of declaring himself the servant of the senate. After considerable hesitation, on April 2nd he named himself the legatus senatus populique Romani in a speech delivered from his tribunal, and made preparations for war. In Spain he was supported by Otho, legatus of Lusitania, and Caecina, quaestor of Baetica; but their adherence was of little consequence if the legions of the Rhine and Clodius Macer, governor of Africa, held aloof.
In the meantime the issue of the revolt of Vindex had been decided. When the news was brought, Nero returned to Rome, and took measures for its suppression. Those troops, which were already on their march from Germany and Britain to prosecute a war against the Sarmatians, received orders to return. But the quelling of the rebellion was due to Verginius Rufus, the legatus of Upper Germany, who resisted all the endeavors of Vindex to gain him over. Alarmed by the national character of the movement, Verginius advanced with his own legions, reinforced by a division from the lower province, to Vesontio, which was threatened by the Gallic militia of the rebel. Vesontio, whose name has become Besancon, was a very important place; for at it the roads from Lower Germany and north-western Gaul, from the Rhine and from the Jura mountains, met. Here a great battle took place. The legions were completely victorious, and Vindex was slain. It was not loyalty to Nero that had induced the Germanic army to repel the advances of Vindex : it was rather the Gallic character of the revolt. This is shown by the fact that after the victory they proclaimed their general Imperator. But he resisted the temptation. He was a man of lowly birth, and perhaps thought that he had no chance of being accepted by the nobility of Rome. In the inscription for his tomb, which he composed before his death, he mentions as the two creditable actions of his life his victory over Vindex and his refusal of the Empire.
After the failure of the revolt in Gaul, the situation of Galba seemed hopeless, and he despaired himself. But he was saved by the Emperor’s want of resolution, and the treachery of the ministers. When the news of the defection in Spain arrived in Rome, Nero confiscated Galba’s property, and himself assumed the consulship. He made preparations for an expedition against Galba, and appointed Petronius Turpilianus as the commander. A new legion was organized from the troops of the fleet and called legio classica. But the praetorian guards, who were devoted to the Julian house, seemed to have remained quietly in their camp, instead of taking the field, as we should have expected.
The prefect Tigellinus vanishes from the scene, and plays no part in the catastrophe of his master. His fall was probably due to the intrigues of Nymphidius Sabinus, the other prefect, who nominally embraced the cause of Galba, but was really aiming at securing the Empire for himself. If Nero had not utterly lost his head, he was secure in the loyalty of the praetorian guards, notwithstanding the aspirations of the prefect. But he was a coward, and his irresolution drove his supporters away. Dull dissatisfaction prevailed in Rome. Corn was dear, and when a ship arrived from Egypt which proved to be laden, not with corn, but with sand for the Emperor’s arena, the discontent became acute. It was reported that Nero entertained the idea of abandoning Rome, and sailing to Alexandria, to make that city the capital of an eastern empire—the idea which Antonius had almost realized. The senate was naturally eager to overthrow the tyrant, who hated it, in favor of Galba, but feared to compromise itself until the praetorian guards had declared themselves. In order to draw them from their devotion to Nero, Nymphidius resorted to an artifice. He persuaded the Emperor, who was distracted with fear, to repair from the palace to the Servilian gardens, which lay close to the Tiber, on the road to Ostia. He then went to the camp and informed the soldiers that Nero had deserted them and left Rome. They were easily convinced that it was their interest to support Galba, and the wily prefect promised them in Galba’s name a donative of 30,000 sesterces each. He knew that Galba would never fulfill the promise, and he hoped, by means of the consequent dissatisfaction, to secure his own ends. Meanwhile, in the Servilian gardens the Emperor was devising counsels of despair. He was gradually deserted by his courtiers and most of his slaves and freedmen; and the praetorian cohort, which was keeping guard at the palace, left its post at midnight. At length he determined to flee from Rome, but could induce no friend to share his danger, except a few freedmen. One officer scornfully quoted Virgil, “Is it so hard to die?”
One of the imperial freedmen, named Phaon, offered his master the refuge of a villa, about four miles north-east of Rome, on the Via Patinaria, a crossroad connecting the Via Salaria and the Via Nomentana. Thither he started by night accompanied by Phaon, Epaphroditus, and two other freedmen. The historians have not failed to invest the night-ride and the last scene of Nero’s life with dramatic coloring. The Via Nomentana went close to the praetorian camp and shouts in honor of Galba reached the ears of the fugitives as they passed. The night was wild, with lightning and earthquakes. Nero crept into the villa by a narrow entrance at the back, in order not to arouse the suspicions of the slaves. There he lay on straw for hours, unable to make up his mind to die. “What an artist I am to perish!” he said. But when a slave of Phaon arrived with the news that the senate had condemned him to death more maiorum, and that he was being sought for everywhere, he made up his mind to escape a cruel execution. The tramp of horses’ feet was heard in the distance, when he pressed a dagger to his throat, and it was driven home by Epaphroditus. As he was dying, a centurion entered, and pretended he had come to help him. “Too late!—that was fidelity indeed!” were Nero’s last words. He perished on June 9, 68 A.D.. His body was burnt, and the ashes were buried honorably in the sepulcher of the Domitian gens on the Pincian hill.
At first the tidings of his fall caused universal joy. The senate, who, as soon as the decision of the praetorian guards was known, had hastened to sentence him to a punishment which was almost obsolete, condemned his memory and ordered his statues to be overthrown. The intense hatred which the senatorial party felt towards Nero is most clearly seen in literature. But among the mass of the people, a reaction soon set in. The tyrant’s grave was adorned annually with wreaths of flowers. Many people doubted the reality of his death, and looked for his reappearance; and under succeeding Emperors three false Neros arose and obtained a following. King Vologeses of Parthia sent an embassy, requesting the senate and the new Princeps to hold the memory of Nero in honor. Christians saw in Nero the Antichrist, and thought that as such he would come again.
Nero was the last of the true Caesars—the last, we may say, of the Julian line. Strictly he belonged, by adoption, to the Claudii, yet the Claudian and Julian houses had been so closely connected since the union of Augustus with Livia, that politically little distinction was made between them Nero was not only the adopted son of Claudius; he was also, through his mother, the great-great-grandson of Augustus, and the grandson of Germanicus, who belonged, by adoption, to the Julian gens. Thus it was felt, when Nero perished without an heir, that the line of the great Dictator had come to an end and a new epoch was beginning.
The features of Nero were handsome, but his expression was not pleasant. His face wore a sort of scowl, perhaps due to his defective sight. His body was ill-made; he had a prominent stomach and thin legs. In his later years his skin was blotched from excesses; but his health was good. As a professional singer, he was very careful about his voice. His effeminacy was shown in the arrangement of his hair, and in the looseness of the cincture which bound his dress when he appeared in public. His capricious tyranny recalls, in many respects, the extravagances of Gaius. Like Gaius he was “a lover of the incredible”. But while the mad Gaius had almost a genius for devising absurdities on a colossal scale, Nero was merely extravagant on the beaten tracks of luxury. He gave immense presents to his favorites, and tried to outdo his predecessors in the spaciousness of his buildings. He projected a canal from Puteoli to Rome, as well as the cutting of the isthmus. He did not aspire to divinity, like Gaius, but rather at being pre-eminent among men and receiving their admiration. He was vain rather than proud. He adopted superstitions from the east, and practiced magic. In his later years, the senators seem to have kept quite aloof from his court, and he hated them cordially. No flattery pleased him more than when a courtier said, “I hate you, Nero, because you are a senator”.
SECT. VI. — NERO’S ADMINISTRATION
The peculiarity of Nero’s principate was that it was marked by good government under a bad Emperor. Nero himself was devoid of political insight and spent no care on the administration. Yet in general policy and in the conduct of military affairs, there is