The Great Fire of Rome: The Fall of the Emperor Nero and His City by Stephen Dando-Collins Page B
Authors: Stephen Dando-Collins
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who received houses at Rome and in the country from the emperor. It was the one-on-one contests that the crowd had come to see. Each pair slogged it out with their unarmed trainers standing right behind them and issuing instructions as the fight took place, even lashing them with whips to encourage more spirited displays. Despite this nearness to the fight, and to death, no trainer was apparently injured in a contest or was set on by his own fighter or an opponent. Such was the keenly observed etiquette of the arena.
During the afternoon, Nero was called away from the sport. A message had arrived from Tigellinus at Rome. The Praetorian prefect informed his emperor that he had received information that a leading senator, Marcus Junius Torquatus Silanus, had been lavishing gifts on noble friends. The talk was, Tigellinus said, that Silanus was winning support for a revolution against Nero. Silanus boasted imperial blood as a great-grandson of Augustus. In the eyes of some, this gave him a claim to the throne. Silanus’ accusers also said that he used nobles as his secretaries and bookkeepers, when everyone else, the emperor included, used mere freedmen in these roles, with Seneca a notable exception. It was as if, the accusation went, Silanus were preparing his friends for loftier positions and preparing himself for the loftiest position of all, Nero’s throne.
In light of these slim accusations, Tigellinus had dragged Silanus’ most intimate freedmen off to the Praetorian barracks, where he would personally “examine” them, on the rack. Under Roman law, no Roman citizen could be tortured for information or a confession, but no such right extended to freedmen or slaves. Tigellinus personally conducted such interrogation sessions. Three years earlier, Tigellinus had racked the servants of Nero’s divorced first wife, twenty-year-old Octavia Augusta, daughter of Claudius, trying to extract evidence that Octavia had committed adultery, a charge concocted by Nero’s jealous second wife, Poppaea Sabina.
One of Octavia’s women, Pythias, had bravely gasped from the rack, “My mistress’s privy parts are cleaner, Tigellinus, than your mouth.” 6
By the third and last day of the Beneventum show, Nero received another communication from Tigellinus, this one telling him that Torquatus Silanus had taken his own life. Silanus, suspecting that his arrest was only a matter of time, had “divided the arteries in his arms” with a knife, taking his own life in the time-honored fashion favored by the Roman elite, rather than face trial and conviction in the Senate and a humiliating death at the hands of a Praetorian executioner. 7
Nero seemed surprised by the news. “Though Silanus was guilty, and with good reason had put no trust in his defense,” the emperor declared in a speech published soon after, “he would had lived had he awaited the clemency of the judge.” 8 That judge was, of course, Nero.
Vatinius’ gladiatorial show came to an end, and as Nero’s party prepared to continue to the port of Brundisium, two hundred miles to the southeast, and a subsequent sea voyage to Greece, the emperor made a surprise announcement. He would, for the moment, not be going on to Achaia, he said, without giving any reason for his change of plan. He would instead be returning to Rome at once. Perhaps, just perhaps, Nero had been made uneasy by Tigellinus’ preemptory action against Silanus. Was the emperor wondering what else the Praetorian prefect might get up to while he was away in Greece?
So, the entire cavalcade turned around and headed back down the road to Rome.
IX
THE JEWS AND THE CHRISTIANS
I n Rome, twenty-seven-year-old Joseph bar Matthias was finishing his lunch, the main meal of the day for first-century Jews. To Romans, the main meal of the day was taken in the evening. Joseph was completing preparations for Pesach, the Jewish festival of the Passover, then only days
During the afternoon, Nero was called away from the sport. A message had arrived from Tigellinus at Rome. The Praetorian prefect informed his emperor that he had received information that a leading senator, Marcus Junius Torquatus Silanus, had been lavishing gifts on noble friends. The talk was, Tigellinus said, that Silanus was winning support for a revolution against Nero. Silanus boasted imperial blood as a great-grandson of Augustus. In the eyes of some, this gave him a claim to the throne. Silanus’ accusers also said that he used nobles as his secretaries and bookkeepers, when everyone else, the emperor included, used mere freedmen in these roles, with Seneca a notable exception. It was as if, the accusation went, Silanus were preparing his friends for loftier positions and preparing himself for the loftiest position of all, Nero’s throne.
In light of these slim accusations, Tigellinus had dragged Silanus’ most intimate freedmen off to the Praetorian barracks, where he would personally “examine” them, on the rack. Under Roman law, no Roman citizen could be tortured for information or a confession, but no such right extended to freedmen or slaves. Tigellinus personally conducted such interrogation sessions. Three years earlier, Tigellinus had racked the servants of Nero’s divorced first wife, twenty-year-old Octavia Augusta, daughter of Claudius, trying to extract evidence that Octavia had committed adultery, a charge concocted by Nero’s jealous second wife, Poppaea Sabina.
One of Octavia’s women, Pythias, had bravely gasped from the rack, “My mistress’s privy parts are cleaner, Tigellinus, than your mouth.” 6
By the third and last day of the Beneventum show, Nero received another communication from Tigellinus, this one telling him that Torquatus Silanus had taken his own life. Silanus, suspecting that his arrest was only a matter of time, had “divided the arteries in his arms” with a knife, taking his own life in the time-honored fashion favored by the Roman elite, rather than face trial and conviction in the Senate and a humiliating death at the hands of a Praetorian executioner. 7
Nero seemed surprised by the news. “Though Silanus was guilty, and with good reason had put no trust in his defense,” the emperor declared in a speech published soon after, “he would had lived had he awaited the clemency of the judge.” 8 That judge was, of course, Nero.
Vatinius’ gladiatorial show came to an end, and as Nero’s party prepared to continue to the port of Brundisium, two hundred miles to the southeast, and a subsequent sea voyage to Greece, the emperor made a surprise announcement. He would, for the moment, not be going on to Achaia, he said, without giving any reason for his change of plan. He would instead be returning to Rome at once. Perhaps, just perhaps, Nero had been made uneasy by Tigellinus’ preemptory action against Silanus. Was the emperor wondering what else the Praetorian prefect might get up to while he was away in Greece?
So, the entire cavalcade turned around and headed back down the road to Rome.
IX
THE JEWS AND THE CHRISTIANS
I n Rome, twenty-seven-year-old Joseph bar Matthias was finishing his lunch, the main meal of the day for first-century Jews. To Romans, the main meal of the day was taken in the evening. Joseph was completing preparations for Pesach, the Jewish festival of the Passover, then only days
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