Nero Caesar Augustus by David Shotter

Author:David Shotter [Shotter, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Ancient, General, Europe
ISBN: 9781317865902
Google: n8C3AwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-06-03T16:14:21+00:00

Chapter Eight

* * *

The Beginning of the End

Tacitus brought the fourteenth book of his Annals to a close on an ominous note:1 by recounting Octavia’s banishment and then her cruel and brutal death, the historian points up the sudden savagery of an Emperor who, although previously far from faultless, had generally refrained from such barbaric cruelty. The new depths that Nero now plumbed were symbolised2 by the decapitation of Octavia and the presentation of the severed head to Poppaea Sabina. Even more depressing was the fact that the Senate greeted such an act with lavish expressions of gratitude, recalling the level of sycophancy that had once exasperated the Emperor, Tiberius,3 and was to have the same effect on Nero’s successor, Galba.4

It has been observed5 that Nero was not previously noted for excessive cruelty, despite his sometimes rash and reckless conduct. The murder of Agrippina was shocking because it was an act of matricide, although aspects of it, assuming that they were not subsequently invented, were more bizarre than gratuitously cruel. Indeed, Nero’s early years as Emperor had seen few deaths that were unequivocally attributable to him. Besides Agrippina, the most obvious cases were those of Britannicus (if, indeed, he was murdered), Faustus Sulla and Rubellius Plautus; all of these Nero plainly came to regard with increasing anxiety as possible rivals and, in the cases of the latter two, he had at first tried to obviate those fears by exiling the two men. Again, although many had criticised the character – particularly the lack of dignity – of Nero’s games and shows, he had concentrated on artistic and athletic contests, and had not allowed fights to the death.6 Indeed, Nero’s games were perfectly consistent with the growing philhellenism of the young Emperor.

There can be little doubt that, despite Seneca’s efforts to inculcate a ‘proper’ notion of clemency and authority into his pupil, presumably in the hope that he might thus mould him into the ‘philosopherking’, Nero’s view of clemency was whimsical and essentially selfindulgent, as was highlighted by the trial in AD 627 of Antistius Sosianus for writing scurrilous verses directed at Nero. The Emperor was, of course, well aware, as Seneca reminded him, that he held the power of life and death over his subjects.8 The trial of Antistius9 was of considerable significance for a number of reasons: first, it represented the revival of treason trials that Nero, at the opening of his reign, had promised to abolish. Secondly, on this occasion, the initiator of the charges against Antistius was Cossutianus Capito, the son-in-law of Nero’s new Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Ofonius Tigellinus. Thirdly, a sycophantic Senate was on the point of endorsing the death-penalty when the outspoken Stoic senator, Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus, intervened to propose a less drastic course of action. Fourthly, in an ending, that, in some ways, recalls the conclusion of the trial of Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus, during the reign of Tiberius,10 Nero indicated that, although he was displeased and hurt at Antistius’ conduct, he would, in any case, have exercised imperial clemency.

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