on A.D. 64 Myles Lavan

acitus’ Annals are a fundamental ‘nail in ’s coffin’, would have thought, if he had not condemning him as one of the worst rulers ever known. Here descended to a new low a few days later T by marrying one of his exoleti. The verb Myles Lavan takes another look at book XV to try to make sense that Tacitus uses (denubere) is gender- of its litany of bad behaviour. Myles’ emphasis is not on what specific and normally used only of women. (The de- prefix probably referred the emperor did or did not do but on how a historian writes to the fact that a bride was marrying out of history. her household and into her husband’s.) Just in case you didn’t get the hint that Tacitus’ narrative of the eleventh year of performed as a kitharode (singing to the Nero was assuming the role of the bride, Nero’s reign, A.D. 64, offers an extraordi- accompaniment of a kithara or lyre) in a Tacitus goes on to tell us that he wore a nary concentrated display of megaloma- public theatre. This was a long-time veil and brought a dowry. There was even niac excess. Here in the space of a few passion of his – one of his first actions as a marriage bed; ‘everything’ was done in pages we find an extravagant orgy on a emperor had been to retain the services of public – even those things that are lake, the emperor singing (not ‘fiddling’) the best kitharode of the day as a teacher normally hidden by the night (no prizes while Rome burns and Christians set on and he had already performed in private – for guessing what he means). fire to illuminate the night. This is no acci- but giving a public performance was a big ‘Disaster followed’, Tacitus writes, dent, nor is it merely a reflection of histori- step. In an age when actors can become inviting us to see not just a temporal cal events. This narrative, the centrepiece Governor of California (the Terminator connection but a causal link between of the fifteenth book of Tacitus’ Annals, himself) or even President of the United Nero’s depravity and one of Rome’s great- has been meticulously crafted to play an States (Ronald Reagan), it requires a leap est catastrophes. For A.D. 64 was also the important role within the work as a whole. of the imagination to grasp the depth of the year of the Great Fire. A quarter of the city The Annals, Tacitus’ last and greatest contempt in which musicians, actors, burned to the ground; another half was work, is a history of the reigns of dancers, and other performers were held reduced to scorched ruins. Although Augustus’ descendants Tiberius, Gaius, by traditionalist aristocrats like Tacitus. Tacitus is careful to appear to suspend Claudius, and Nero. Tiberius receives six Many artists were slaves; many were judgement, he draws the reader’s attention books (I–VI) and Gaius and Claudius foreigners. Even those who were free and to rumours and circumstantial evidence together get another six (VII–XII). The had Roman citizenship were treated as that the emperor was implicated in start- rest of the work is devoted to Nero, the last second-class citizens under Roman law ing, or at least feeding the blaze. Allegedly of the Julio-Claudians, but the transmitted because of what was seen as their ‘dis- Nero wanted the glory of re-founding text breaks off in the middle of Book XVI honourable’ profession. Rome and giving it his name. (Suetonius in A.D. 66, with two years left before Nero’s sexual escapades have lost less tells us that he planned to rename the city Nero’s death in A.D. 68. of their power to shock. Tacitus goes on to ‘Neropolis’.) The destruction also gave Scholars have long debated whether the describe in lurid detail an extraordinary him the opportunity to build a massive original work ended in Book XVI or banquet put on by Nero’s sinister right- new palace, the famous ‘Golden House’, continued to a Book XVIII (the latter hand man, the Praetorian Prefect Ofonius which took a big bite out of the city east would make for six Neronian books and a . The party was held in a lake, of the Forum. It included a large lake, in nice symmetry for the work as a whole, on a floating raft pulled by exoleti. the place where the Flavians later built the but would have required Tacitus to spin Originally the past participle of the verb Colosseum, and extensive parklands – all the events of two and half years into two exolesco (meaning ‘outgrown’ or ‘past his within the bounds of the old city. and a half books). Either way, Book XV prime’), exoletus became a technical term As suspicions grew that the emperor occupied an important position in Tacitus’ for a man past adolescence who was used had a hand in the city’s devastation, Neronian narrative, whether it was the for sex, distinguishing him from younger Tacitus tells us, Nero looked for a scape- second-last book or the end of the first ‘boys’ (pueri). ‘A vile person of mature goat. He found one in a universally half. The book culminates with the great age’, as one of my older dictionaries puts despised cult commonly known as the Pisonian Conspiracy of A.D. 65, a botched it, missing the point that any vileness lay Chrestiani. (Tacitus smugly shows that he attempt to assassinate the emperor which in the slave system that subjected both knows better, noting that the founder of resulted in the decimation of the Roman men and women, adults and children to the cult was called Christus, with an i not aristocracy. It is in order to raise the stakes sexual exploitation – certainly not in its an e.) Professed Christians were rounded for this abortive attempt to free Rome that victims. In this case, the emperor’s up and Nero decided to make their execu- Tacitus pulls out all the stops in his narra- evidently extensive corps of exoleti were tion entertaining. Now there was nothing tive of the preceding year. deployed on rowing boats and arranged by new in public executions – the killing of age and their particular sexual expertise. criminals was a common sideshow at A tyrant worthy of tyrannicide Meanwhile, the shores of the lake were gladiatorial games – but Nero had some- lined with brothels filled with aristocratic thing more creative in mind. Hosting the Nero’s first transgression loses something women and nude prostitutes, all dancing show in his own gardens, he had some of in translation. Tacitus tells us that 64 A.D. provocatively. Nero, Tacitus tells us, left the Christians dressed up in the skins of was the year in which the emperor first no depravity untried that night – or so you wild beasts and torn apart by dogs. Others

31 were crucified and then, when night fell, mentions a short-lived revolt by some doesn’t disappoint! set on fire to provide human torches. gladiators outside the capital city. Tacitus is disgusted. Not because he sees Everyone, he says, was talking about the Christians as innocent victims – he Spartacus. The mention of the great slave agrees that the adherents of this ‘vicious rebel of the first century B.C. is a bit incon- cult’ (exitiabilis superstitio) deserve the gruous here. But it is yet another indica- most extreme punishment – but because tion that contemporaries felt that they the real point of this spectacle was not to were living in a time of crisis – or so protect the state but to satisfy Nero’s sense Tacitus would have us believe – and that of cruelty (saevitia), the characteristic Rome was under threat. vice of tyrants. A disappointing climax A sense of impending doom and gloom The explanation, and literary justification, All this in the space of a few pages. And, for all this doom and gloom lies in the last as if the account was not grim enough in third of the book, which covers the year itself, Tacitus intensifies the sense of crisis A.D. 65. The whole year’s narrative is by sprinkling the narrative with reminders devoted to the Pisonian conspiracy, of great disasters in Rome’s past. The making it the single longest episode in the groundwork has already been laid in the whole of the Annals. Leading Romans first third of Book XV, which covers the plot to kill Nero and replace him with the previous two years and focuses on skir- illustrious senator Gaius Calpurnius Piso. mishing between Rome and its rival The conspiracy is a pathetic failure. The Parthia on the eastern frontiers of the conspirators repeatedly procrastinate and, empire. Only two years before the Great when they finally do settle on a plan and a Fire, Caesennius Paetus – the arrogant but date, they are betrayed because one of none-too-competent governor of them is a bit too theatrical in his prepara- Cappadocia – had managed to get himself tions (his ostentatious dagger-sharpening and two legions besieged by a Parthian and extravagant goodbyes rouse a slave’s army. The Romans despaired, surrendered suspicions). Once the emperor starts and, it was said, were ‘sent beneath the rounding up suspects, the conspirators yoke’ (an old Italian tradition by which a race to implicate each other. It is a sordid defeated enemy was made to bow down affair, and only a freedwoman and a and pass under a spear set as a cross-bar soldier come off with any honour. Many between two other spears standing prominent Romans are put to death, upright). It was a humiliating setback for among them the poet (not before he the Roman empire. Tacitus deepens the informs on his own mother!) and the shame by comparing it to a much earlier philosopher Seneca (innocent of any disgrace, the Caudine Forks. That was the involvement, apparently). name of the narrow pass in which a Roman Tacitus’ narrative brings out the story’s army was trapped by the Samnites in 321 dramatic potential, as the reader feels first B.C. There too the Romans surrendered sympathy with the plan to kill Nero, then and were sent beneath the yoke. The name frustration at the conspirators’ bumbling means little in English today, but the failures and finally disgust at the after- French still talk about passing under the math. But the conspiracy’s dramatic Caudine Forks the way we talk about narrative, not to mention the sense of ‘meeting one’s Waterloo’. The Romans disappointment, is all the more intense remembered it all too well. Tacitus acti- precisely because Tacitus has raised the vates that memory both by having Paetus’ stakes over the course of Book XV by soldiers compare their situation to the showing just how vicious Nero’s reign has Caudine Forks and by echoing the become. What hope for the Roman people language of the canonical account in when it cannot free itself from this Livy’s earlier history. ‘mother- and wife-murderer, charioteer, The Great Fire is used to recall another actor, and arsonist’ – as the one disaster, this time the sack of Rome by honourable soldier calls him to his face? Gauls in 390 B.C. Tacitus tells us that some (The odd catalogue of crimes is a nice people pointed out that the fire had broken reminder of how seriously traditionalists out on exactly the same date (19 July) as took Nero’s passion for the stage.) that on which the Gauls had burned the Vindication must come. And it will come, city 453 years earlier. Tacitus himself in the form of the aptly named Gaius Julius brings up the Gallic fire again a few lines Vindex (‘Avenger’/‘Liberator’), but it is later. Nero suggests another comparison. four years and (probably) three books As the city burns, he puts on a private away – and modern readers are denied it performance as a kitharode, singing of the by the truncated state of the text. fall of Troy – the disaster that marked the beginning of Roman history. (Remember Myles Lavan teaches Ancient History at that the Romans regarded themselves as the University of Saint Andrews. His book descendants of the Trojans.) Finally, as Slaves to Rome will be published by Tacitus is bringing the year to a close, he Cambridge University Press in 2013 and

32