After the death of Claudius, Nero, then a youth of seventeen years,
mounted the throne without any opposition: whether Claudius had still
made a disposition in favour of Britannicus, can no longer be made out.
Nero was endowed by nature with bountiful gifts; he had a talent for
music and the fine arts, and also for mechanics: there is no reason to
doubt that in music he was a virtuoso. He was a pupil of Seneca. At
first, he gave birth to the fairest hopes; yet even thus early, it was
difficult for farsighted people to believe in them, who felt sure that a
viper’s brood must be vipers. His mother Agrippina was the unworthy
daughter of the worthy Germanicus, and the worthy sister of Caligula;
his father, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, was quite her match, and he said
himself, that from him and Agrippina a monster only could have been
born. The whole of the Roman world shared in this foreboding; and
therefore people were so much the more astonished at Nero’s behaving at
first like the disciple of Seneca and Burrhus. The latter was a fine
honest man of the old school, and a good officer, who was appointed by
Nero as _præfectus prætorio_; Seneca was a refined man of the world, who
busied himself a great deal about virtue, and may also have looked upon
himself as an old Stoic, believing for certain that there was not a more
clever and virtuous man living than himself: yet this did not prevent
his giving himself every moment a dispensation from his virtue. The
influence of these two men during the first years of this reign was
decided; but the beautiful dream of Nero’s amiability was very short, as
both of these tutors were very soon set aside. The first impulse was
given by the profligacy to which Nero had yielded himself up from his
earliest youth; and then by his mother, who left no means untried to
keep her son in a state of dependence. She was opposed by Burrhus and
Seneca: the former withstood her out of love for his country; the latter
perhaps from the same motives, but just as much from personal grounds,
Agrippina being his enemy. When this change took place, cannot be
exactly ascertained. The progress of it—the personal connexions in which
Nero lived; the influence of Poppæa Sabina, a woman of high rank and
wonderful beauty, but tainted with the profligacy of her age, in whose
nets he was irretrievably entangled; the still more baneful influence of
his mother—is described by Tacitus: I will not speak of Nero’s
degeneracy and unbounded depravity; all of it is too well known,—his
name alone is enough. He resolved to murder his own mother, against whom
he bore a grudge; and after an unsuccessful attempt, he carried out his
purpose, owing, as Dio represents it, to Seneca’s instigation. That the
speech which he caused to be read on that subject in the senate, was
composed by Seneca, is an undoubted fact.
Though Nero now raged without restraint, and every day steeped his hands
more and more in bloodshed, Tacitus does not look upon it as certain,
that he had the city set on fire: on the contrary, he takes it for an
idle rumour. It looks like Nero’s madness, that during the fire he got
up upon the tower of Mæcenas, and in the attire of a tragedian sang the
Ἰλίου ἅλωσις to the lyre: at all events, it may have been a welcome
thing to him to be now able to build Rome anew. This fire, which lasted
six whole days, is of very great importance in history: an immense
number of monuments of every kind, historical records, works of art, and
libraries, utterly perished; the larger half of Rome was destroyed, or
at least very much damaged; the streets were all laid out in straight
lines, and made broader, and they were built up in a new style, which
gave the city quite a different appearance. The great fire at
Constantinople, under Leo Macellas[41] in the fifth century of our era,
has likewise had a most ruinous effect on Greek literature.
After this fire, Nero gave loose to his boundless prodigality and love
of building; and for this purpose he extorted money from the whole of
the Roman world. He built, what is called his “Golden Palace,” which
extended from the Palatine, where afterwards the temple of Venus and
Roma[42] was erected by Hadrian, to the baths of Titus, which, to speak
more correctly, are those of Trajan: Vespasian had it destroyed for the
sake of the remembrances connected with it. Some parts of the walls may
still be found in the substructions of the baths of Titus: it was a most
beautiful pile of masonry, with a coating of the finest marble: we are
to imagine it to have been like a fairy palace in an eastern dream.
After this, Nero also had Seneca executed, whose manly end somewhat
redeems the weakness of his life. Bareas Soranus and Thrasea Pætus were
likewise made to die: the latter was preceded by his wife Arria, who
gave him the example of a courageous death.
In Nero’s days, the Roman empire had not such rest as under Claudius.
During the reign of the latter, the Romans had carried on wars in
Britain, where they had established themselves, and had reduced a large
part of the country into the form of a Roman province. From the despair
of the Britons, we may see that the condition of a province, while it
was yet new, and especially in a poor country, was one of great
hardship; for it was only by great extortion that anything worth naming
could be wrung from it. Hence arose the insurrection of the Britons
under the great queen Boudicea as Tacitus calls her; according to Dio
Cassius, Bunduica. This war at first was disastrous, and, to say the
least, very serious indeed: the Romans were utterly beaten; their
fortresses were demolished, two of their towns were taken, and many of
them were slain. Suetonius Paullinus at last with great difficulty
crushed the rebellion; Boudicea killed herself, and the Britons again
bowed beneath the Roman yoke. Thus that outbreak paved the way for the
complete conquest of Britain; and the Romans were now already masters of
England, with the exception of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and the
northern provinces: Anglesea also was Roman.
Another war was waged by Corbulo against the Parthians in Armenia, where
a younger dynasty of the Arsacidæ was seated on the throne. This war
Corbulo carried on with unfaltering success, conquering Artaxata and
Tigranocerta, and obliging Vologæsus to sue for peace. The last scion of
this race of kings, Tiridates, was forced to receive Armenia as a fief
from Nero; for which purpose he had to come to Rome, where he met with a
splendid reception. His appearance in Rome is one of those events of
which the memory has survived in the traditions of the middle ages: he
is mentioned, for instance, in the _Mirabilia Romæ_; and there is a
legend—which, of course, is quite unfounded—that he brought the statues
of Castor and Pollux, the work of Phidias and Praxiteles, as a present
to Rome. The thanks which Corbulo earned for his victories, was death.
He was undoubtedly one of the best Romans of that age; he was a man free
from every craving of ambition, true and conscientious. His bust was
found about forty years ago; its features are noble.
Nero now passed from one mad freak to another. I am inclined to believe,
that he was not morally accountable for all of this, as insanity seems
to have been hereditary in his family: Caligula was his uncle. Many
things that he did were merely contemptible; as for instance, his going
like a stroller through the Greek towns, where he tried to win the
prizes, either as a musician, singer, or poet, in the public contests,
or else in the horse-races, putting himself on a level with the other
competitors. This would have been the most innocent of his pranks, were
it not that he also robbed Greece of its works of art. The _præfectus
prætorio_, Tigellinus, who had been appointed in the room of Burrhus,
was at that time the most infamous of all those men who had any energy:
the world was rid of him by the rising of Galba and Vindex.
In the thirteenth year of Nero’s reign, the first real attempt was made
to overthrow his rule: a former conspiracy of Calpurnius Piso, in which
Seneca also had perished, was a mere court plot in which no troops had
any share. Nero had undertaken his journey through Greece to gratify his
vanity: and whilst he everywhere caused himself to be crowned there as a
conqueror, a rebellion broke out in Gaul under Julius Vindex, an
Aquitanian of rank. The Gauls who had received the Roman franchise, bore
all of them at that time the _prænomen_ of Julius, either after Julius
Cæsar or Augustus; just as in Asia all had the name of Tiberius Claudius
(thus, without a doubt Tib. Claudius Galenus). This has given rise to
confusion in the system of Roman names: Julius Agricola, although a
native of the Roman colony Forum Julii, may likewise have sprung from
Gallic ancestors, which Tacitus, of course, says nothing about. Julius
Vindex had the rank of a Roman senator; and by his wealth and his
influence he set an insurrection on foot, which had quite a different
character from a former rising in the reign of Tiberius: his object was
simply as a Roman to shake off the yoke of Nero, not to sever Gaul
itself from Rome. He met with very great sympathy, and had already
spread his rule from Aquitaine as far as Besançon. The history of that
time is in a very wretched state, as Tacitus is wanting, and nothing is
left of Dio but the abridgment of Xiphilinus. Near Besançon, Vindex met
T. Virginius Rufus, the commander of the German troops, a distinguished
man, one of the few disinterested and true patriots which Rome still
had. The latter was afraid that such a rising in Gaul, although it had
the deliverance of Rome for its object, might cause the dismemberment of
the empire; so they made a truce, and agreed to acknowledge the
authority of the senate. The German troops wished to have Rufus for
emperor; but he refused: Vindex, on the other hand, was slain in a
tumult which had broken out between the two armies.
In the meanwhile, Servius Sulpicius Galba was proclaimed emperor in
Spain: in that country there was only one legion, though there were many
veterans out of whom a militia might be formed. Galba sprang from one of
the most distinguished Roman houses. The _prænomen_ Servius was quite an
heir-loom among the Sulpicii, as Appius was among the Claudii: yet it
had altogether vanished as a _prænomen_, and had almost become a nomen,
so that sometimes another _prænomen_ is put before it; which indeed is
incorrect, but may be accounted for. Of Galba’s character we do not know
much; had we but Suetonius, we should be at a loss how to form any
notion of him, as Suetonius himself has no insight into character, being
nothing but a pleasing and lively teller of anecdotes; some light is,
however, thrown on Galba by the beginning of the _Historiæ_ of Tacitus.
Galba had the respect of the army; he had been, when in his best days, a
good general, and for those times at least, a blameless governor: but
now he was in his seventy-first year, and had fallen under the influence
of unworthy people, especially of freedmen. This sort of petty courts,
composed of freedmen, had a great deal to do with the demoralized state
of the Roman world. On the whole, there was in the Roman empire a bitter
hatred against Nero, except among bloodthirsty men, of whom there were
not a few: these rather liked him. Galba began his march, and soon
formed new legions from the Romans and Italians who came to hand.
According to the obscure accounts which we have, it appears that he now
availed himself of the pretence that the Gauls were rebels against the
majesty of the Roman senate, although under Vindex they had risen
against the tyrant only; and he allowed his troops to plunder the
southern Gallic towns. Virginius Rufus declared for him, and they both
of them now crossed the Alps by different roads. Not a sword was drawn
in behalf of Nero, although the prætorians were devoted to him: the
passes of the Alps opened without a blow being struck, and the rebel
armies drew nigh to the capital; on which Nero found himself abandoned
by every one. The senate quickly passed from its former cringing
servility into defiance and contempt; Nero fled from his palace, and
took refuge in the farm-yard of one of the retainers of his household,
where he hid himself, and, with the greatest reluctance, and with
uncertain hand, inflicted on himself a deadly wound. Against him and his
memory, every possible condemnation was denounced; yet his dead body was
buried after all.