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Preemptive Execution in Tacitus' Annals

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Preemptive Execution in Tacitus' Annals University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Departmental Papers (Classical Studies) Classical Studies at Penn 2010 Intestinum Scelus: Preemptive Execution in Tacitus' Annals Cynthia Damon University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers Part of the Classics Commons Recommended Citation (OVERRIDE) Damon, C. (2010). Intestinum Scelus: Preemptive execution in Tacitus' Annals. In B. Breed, C. Damon, & A. Rossi (Eds.), Citizens of Discord: Rome and Its Civil Wars (pp. 261-272). Oxford Scholarship Online. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195389579.001.0001 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/53 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Intestinum Scelus: Preemptive Execution in Tacitus' Annals Abstract This chapter examines Tacitus' representation of the legacy of civil war in his history of the Julio‐Claudian period, the Annals, arguing that civil war persists during the pax Augusta as a kind of banalization of state violence against citizens, a political system that consumes its own. It studies Tacitus' multi‐episode account of Nero's paranoid, possibly cynical, and ultimately self‐defeating appropriation of civil war exempla to motivate the suppression of potential dissent. Keywords Tacitus, Annals, Nero, civil war Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Classics This book chapter is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/classics_papers/53 16 Intestinum Scelus: Preemptive Execution in Tacitus' Annals Cynthia Damon 1. Introduction Servius Galba was an unlikely contender for imperial power in 68 CE. Governor of Hispania Tarraconensis since 61, he had been keeping a low profile for years; there are no achievements of note for him after Claudius' principate.1 By 68 he was a septuagenarian survivor who had seen five emperors come and four go. True, he was tied to the interests of the res pu­ blica by birth, wealth, and a traditional career, but it was not public interest that moved him to challenge Nero. What tipped the balance? Ancient expla­ nations focus not on Nero's misrule (often used to explain the Pisonian conspiracy and Vindex's revolt), but on something more basic: Galba feared for his life. According to Suetonius, for example, "he had gotten hold of Nero's orders about his own execution, which had been sent secretly to pro­ vincial agents" (Suet. Galba 9.2: mandata Neronis de nece sua ad procura­ tores clam missa deprenderat). 2 Whether or not such orders had been given in Galba's case-Gwyn Morgan (2oo6: 21) thinks not-Galba could (and apparently did) point to the executions of numerous other men with a record like his (e.g., Suet. Galba 10.1: propositis ante se damnatorum occiso­ rumque a Nerone ... imaginibus; "setting up in front of himself ... images of those condemned and killed by Nero"; Plut. Galba 5.2: Twv uv-np'YJfLEVwv avopwv {rrr' UUTOU TOV<; bwpavE<JTUTOVS oAocpvpafLEVOS; "uttering lament for the most eminent of the men slain by [Nero]"). For preemptive execution had long been Nero's policy; the emperor learned more from his mother than from his tutor.3 Preemptive execution 262 AFTERLIFE is also a recurrent feature in Tacitus' analysis of imperial paranoia, which, in an era of"peace and an emperor" (Ann. 3.28.2: pace et principe), nevertheless saw civil war everywhere and reacted accordingly, often appropriating civil war exempla to moti­ vate the suppression of (what was figured as) dissent. Or at least the attempted suppression; in fact, as Tacitus shows, the paranoid reaction, when it sounded the "civil war alarm;' risked rousing real civil war and thereby perpetuating Rome's cycle of self-inflicted suffering.4 The specter of civil war haunts Tacitus' Julio-Claudians, and each of the emperors for whom his narrative survives is shown coping with it and with those of his circle who try to exploit the "lessons" of past civil wars: Sejanus, Messalina, Poppaea, and Tigellinus, to name just a few, are among the powerful figures who evoke the horrors of civil war for their own self-serving and short-sighted ends. The year of civil war that erupted with Galba and nearly destroyed the res publica (Hist. 1.11.3) was, in Tacitus' view, long in preparation. The present essay traces the intertwined themes of civil war (alleged or attempted) and preemptive execution (accomplished or feared) in the Annals. It is a story of many episodes, with the Tiberian scenes serving as foil to the Claudian and both to the Neronian. Lacking Tacitus' narrative of Nero's end we cannot see whether the trajectory sketched here culminates there, of course. But in his earlier work our author did create a direct connection between fear of preemptive execu­ tion and real civil war. Two episodes from the Histories, then, will serve as an intro­ duction to the dynamics of the arbitrary exercise of power. I begin with Otho's coup. Tacitus' narrative of the conspiracy that overthrew Galba is, in its events, very close to the parallel tradition. What Tacitus adds is Otho's internal deliberations, fear foremost: "he also contemplated what he feared" (H. 1.21.1: fingebat et metum). Otho's chief fear was in fact execution, which he felt he risked not for anything he had done but simply for who he was (1.21.1). He rea­ sons thus: "Otho can be killed! Accordingly, now is the time for action and daring" (1.21.2: occidi Othonem posse. proinde agendum audendumque). Otho is afraid that his temporary eminence as a potential adoption candidate will expose him to the hostility of the successful heir, Piso, for "suspicion and hatred from those in power attend the man forecast as next in succession" (1.21.1: suspectum semper invisumque dominantibus qui proximus destinaretur). And his fear prompts action-the killing of Galba and Piso-that brings in its train the next phase of the year's wars, Otho versus Vitellius. In effect, Tacitus makes his Otho act on the assumption that the men presently in power will respond to their fears as the real Nero did. One further passage from the Histories will finish setting the stage. Through Otho in the scene just discussed Tacitus shows us the rebel's motivation; he offers the ruler's side in an episode from Vitellius' reign later in the year. Trivial in its consequences (except to the victim), the episode is nevertheless narrated in PREEMPTIVE EXECUTION IN TACITUS' ANNALS 263 considerable detail over two chapters and introduced with the attention-getting comment "Junius Blaesus' death was common knowledge at the time and an object of talk" (Hist. 3.38.1: nota per eos dies Iunii Blaesi mars et famosa fuit). Out of prava aemulatio, "perverted rivalry;' says Tacitus, Lucius Vitelli us, the emperor's brother, accused Blaesus of constituting a greater threat to Vitellius than his challenger Vespasian (3.38.2). The latter was far away; Blaesus, here in Rome: "[Vitellius] should beware an enemy in the city, within his embrace ... , who with his imperial stock was parading affable and splendid before the soldiers" (3.38.3: in urbe ac sinu cavendum hostem ... , qui se stirpe imperatoria com em ac magnificum militibus ostentet). The intimate setting of the accusation is stressed-"he opens the emperor's bedroom door, clasping [Vitellius'] son to his chest and falling at his knees" (3.38.2: cubiculum imperatoris reserat,filium eius sinu complexus et genibus accidens)-and the execution of Blaesus follows forthwith (3.39.1). According to Tacitus, however, Blaesus had done nothing more than attend a party when the emperor was indis­ posed (3.38.1). The allegation of mounting a military challenge to Vitelli us-that is, of restarting the civil wars of 6g-came in the first instance from the sort of men "who spy out rulers' affronts" (3.38.2: qui principum offensas ... speculantur ); in their perverted rivalry for influence at court, such men were prompt with "services" like warning a paranoid ruler against nonexistent dangers, like Blaesus. In Tacitus' anal­ ysis, however, as we will see, the real danger to Blaesus and his like is an intestinum scelus, an "inward crime," that the res publica needs to be warned against. 2. Tiberius Tacitus' Tiberius, like his real-world model, does not want to hear about civil war. 5 But the subject was unavoidable. In the Tiberian books civil war is most often evoked in attacks on people who have associated themselves with civil war exempla in one way or another. Cremutius Cordus, for example, with his annales publishing praise of Brutus and declaring Cassius last of the Romans (Ann. 4.34.1). The charges against Cordus, while clearly malicious in intent (4.34.1), are not, in Tacitus' view, without merit: Cordus' writings were dangerous.6 Another civil war threat in the Tiberian books was Gnaeus Piso (2.76.3, 2.81.1). Though ultimately abortive, the civil war he started in Syria had precedent in his father's partisan attachment­ mentioned by Tacitus when Piso is first appointed to Syria (2.43.2)-to Pompey against Caesar and later to Brutus and Cassius against Caesar's heir. The civil wars of the 50s and 40s were followed by the conflict between Antony and Octavian in the 30s, duly evoked in Tacitus' report of Germanicus' visit to the Actium camp of his grandfather Antony (2.53.2). Cordus, Piso, Germanicus: each man in his way constituted a real threat to Tiberi us and the pax Augusta. 264 AFTERLIFE However, alongside these substantive evocations of civil war, the Tiberian books contain one character who reads a future civil war, gratuitously and self­ servingly, into the behavior of his enemies in order to poison Tiberius' mind against them.
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