067 - What an Artist the World is Losing

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome, Episode 67, What an Artist the World is Losing. Nero had dodged a bullet in 65 AD when the far-reaching Pisonian conspiracy was exposed before it had a chance to act. Thus far, Nero had been living his life with a sort of flippant disregard for the aristocracy, obsessed about his standing with the masses, sure, but not really giving a hoot what a bunch of crusty old senators thought about him. But after the plot was discovered, Nero was exposed to a reality that he had never really considered before. Not only were powerful men unhappy with him, but they were willing to go to extreme lengths to express their unhappiness, and not only were they willing to go to extreme lengths to express their unhappiness, but, except for one lucky break, they had almost gone to them. Nero suddenly realized that his reign, and his life, existed in a far more precarious place than he had previously thought.

Now this is the point where a more introspective man, aided by wise counsel, might examine the roots of the aristocracy's displeasure, and wonder what he, Nero, might be able to do to mute their anger. Were there things he did that were unnecessarily inflammatory? And that, if he knocked off the more extreme stuff, maybe he could avoid perpetually dealing with plots against his life? But Nero was not an introspective man, and his counsel was not wise. So rather than repent his extravagances and grow up a little, he decided to dig in his heels. And if anyone didn't like it, well, there were always treason trials for the incorrigible. But as is so often the case, show trials and indiscriminate persecutions create far more enemies than they destroy, and in a few short years, Nero will reap the full blowback for his actions.

Sixty-five was not just a bad year for Nero because it was very nearly his last, but also because his wife Papaea, mother of his daughter and pregnant with his second, died during the summer. There are conflicting reports about her death, with some surmising that Papaea died naturally during childbirth, as often occurred in the ancient world. But of course, the more famous and salacious version offered by Suetonius and Tacitus is that, over the course of an argument, Nero became enraged and repeatedly kicked her in the stomach until she and the unborn child were dead. Whichever way it occurred, Nero became almost insane with grief, or remorse depending on the version of the story you believe, and rather than cremating Papaea, he had her stuffed and embalmed so that he could visit her in the imperial mausoleum.

In the years after her death, Nero would delve even deeper into his singing, acting, and chariot racing career, culminating in 67 with his participation in the Olympic Games. Despite being thrown, and nearly dying, from a ten-horse chariot, and delivering amateurish singing and acting performances, Nero won the victory crowns for every competition he entered. It was still good to be the king.

While Nero was off pretending to be some great entertainer, in the Far East, the Romans became embroiled in what would prove to be the first of several major revolts in the combustible province of Judea. That the first of these is known simply as the Great Revolt is all you need to know about the impact the conflict will have on the history of the world. We won't be able to finish the whole thing today, as in between the beginning and end of it the whole year of the four emperors things happen, but we can at least get it started along its way.

All had been brewing in Judea from the moment the Romans first showed up in the region. Pompey the Great had famously entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem over the vehement protests of the high priest, which pretty much got the Romans and Jews off on the wrong foot. A short-lived revolt had broken out in the middle of Augustus' reign, and of course, Caligula had nearly sparked a revolution when he insisted on having a statue of himself placed in the temple. But Judea remained relatively calm following the death of Caligula, as Claudius had done his best to walk the fine line between Roman administration and Jewish autonomy. But when Nero arrived on the scene, he was far less attentive to that line, and Jewish complaints about Roman rule began to grow, culminating finally in what is known as the Great Revolt or the First Roman-Jewish War.

The list of grievances ticked off by the Jews usually included a host of religious issues, but as much as conflicts between the monotheistic Jews and polytheistic Romans antagonized both parties, at the heart of the Great Revolt was something far more basic, tax policy. Despite their persistent attempts to move away from the system, the Romans continued to rely on tax farming in Judea, and so dealt with the inherent problems that the system introduced. And just to recap, remember that a private collector would bid for the amount of tax Rome required, and then anything they brought in above that quota was the collector's profit. So, upper and middle class urban Jews began to work these tax farming contracts, and in the eyes of the rural population and the lower class laborers, began to shore the sheep a little too close to the skin in an attempt to maximize their profits.

I bring this up only to note that, with everything that happened at the outbreak of the revolt and beyond, I think it's fair to say that as much as the unrest was a Jewish revolt against foreign occupiers, it was also a civil war within the Jewish community itself, between those who were profiting from the existing political structure and those who were not.

One of the other important things to note about why the revolt broke out in 66, and not some other year, is that according to Josephus, the complete rebuild and expansion of the Temple of Jerusalem begun by Herod the Great, was finally completed in 63 AD, which immediately left thousands of poor laborers and middle class artisans out of work. Basically, any time you have thousands of young men out of work, concentrated in a city center, you are going to have problems. It took a couple of years scraping by while continuing to be gouged by the Roman collaborating tax farmers for these men to reach their boiling point, but when they did, boy did they ever boil over. They finally passed from 99 to 100 degrees Celsius in 66, when the Roman governor decided he was running low on funds, the imperial treasury having been systematically drained by Nero, and decided to simply confiscate all the money the high priest had accumulated in the great temple. When word got out that the high priest had allowed the Romans to have the money, which had been collected from the masses above and beyond the taxes they had already paid to Rome, well, that just about does it, don't you think?

In August of 66 AD, an armed insurrection seized control of the Roman stronghold at Masada. The men who took Masada were members of a splinter group of the most radical sect of Judaism, the Zealots. These radicals, known as the Sicarii, which is Latin for daggers, were uncompromisingly militant and planned to settle for nothing less than the expulsion of the Romans from Judea. From their new base in Masada, this group of Sicarii headed north to Jerusalem, where they confronted the high priest who they believed to be a corrupt Roman collaborator. In the confrontation that followed, the high priest was killed, and in retaliation the leader of the Sicarii himself was assassinated, but this was only the beginning.

As August gave way to September, a small Roman garrison in Jerusalem was besieged, forced to surrender, and then hanged by an angry mob. With the Roman military presence wiped out, Jerusalem became an increasingly dangerous place for Greco-Romans of all types. Not only were citizens of Rome targeted, but also any Greek-speaking foreigner who had made the unfortunate decision to settle in the city. And once the foreigners had all been purged, the mobs turned on Jews identified as collaborators with the Roman regime.

When word came north that the garrison in Jerusalem had all been murdered, the legate of Syria took a legion south into Judea to restore order. But in November 66, the revolting Jews shocked the Romans by ambushing the invading legion at the pass at Beth Horon, and not only wiping the Romans out, but also capturing their legionary eagle in the process. The victory would prove to be a mixed blessing for the zealots, as it simultaneously convinced them that Rome could be beaten, while at the same time raising Roman ire to the point that they were done taking the insurrection lightly, which basically guaranteed that it was going to be crushed.

Plans for a Roman response were escalated all the way to the imperial court, and in late 66, Nero appointed the general Vespasian to take command of the situation in the east and do what was necessary to reassert Rome's dominance in Judea.

Titus Flavius Vespasianus was born in 17 AD in central Italy, and entered public life for the first time in 36, when he was elected military tribune in Thrace at the age of 19. His father was of equestrian rank, and his mother was the sister of a senator, so Vespasian was fast-tracked up the Cursus Honorum, and by 40, he had already served a quaestor ship, an aedile ship, and a praetor ship. He married in 38 AD, and had two sons, Titus, born in 41, and Domitian, born 10 years later in 51. The father and two sons would each eventually sit on the imperial throne, and collectively, their so-called Flavian dynasty would rule Rome from 69 to 96 AD, providing the critical bridge between an empire ruled by members of the Julio-Claudian family, and an empire ruled by whichever man was strong enough, smart enough, and savvy enough to hold on to power.

When Claudius ascended to the throne, Vespasian was able to swing a friendly relationship with Narcissus into an appointment as a legate in Germania, and then a leading role in the invasion of Britain a few years later. Faced with subduing the southern coast of the island after the initial invasion, Vespasian was so successful that he was awarded the right to wear triumphal regalia in public. The triumphal march itself was now reserved exclusively for the emperor. In 51 AD, he capped his public career off with a brief consulship. Though he was still young, Vespasian had achieved everything an ambitious man in Rome could have ever hoped for, so when his consulship was up, he retired from public life.

But in 63, he was coaxed out of retirement by Nero, an appointed governor of the province of Africa. Reports conflict about whether his administration was loved or hated by the locals, but at the very least, it is agreed that Vespasian did not take the opportunity to extort a personal fortune for himself, as was usually the case with pro-consular appointments, despite the constant regulatory reforms that were introduced every few years to discourage the practice. Vespasian instead focused on building a strong social network of clients and allies, and though we don't know if it was necessarily on his mind at the time, these allies will prove to be invaluable when he makes his move for the imperial throne just a few years later.

When he was recalled from Africa, Vespasian joined Nero's imperial entourage as it toured Greece and it was here that the thus far uniformly successful career of Vespasian hit a snag. Immediately during one of Nero's numerous lyre performances, Vespasian had paid quote insufficient attention to the performance, read, he fell asleep, and immediately lost the emperor's favor, which made Vespasian a political non-entity. It speaks volumes then about the esteem that he was held in, that ultimately, when the crisis of Judea broke out and things started to go poorly for the Romans, that Nero turned back to the man he had so recently declared persona non grata. In other words, Vespasian's grave crime of dozing off could not outweigh the fact that he was simply the best man for the job.

In April of 67, Vespasian arrived in Ptolemaeus, a Judean port on the Mediterranean coast, with two legions, and was shortly thereafter joined by a legion led by his eldest son Titus. Coupled with the force led by the Roman client king Agrippa II and other auxiliary forces, the army led by Vespasian soon numbered some 60,000. The Roman general set about systematically subduing the northern half of the province, accepting the surrender of towns that were so inclined, and annihilating towns that refused. By early 68, he held the north, and from his base in the port city of Caesarea, began to sweep south along the coast.

His task was made easier by the fact that the Jewish resistance was internally fractured. Not counting the leaders who wanted no part of the war with Rome to begin with, there were resistance leaders who counseled for opening talks with the Romans immediately, resistance leaders who counseled holding out, but only to a certain point, and resistance leaders, among the zealots especially, who thought that any talk of surrender was proof that you were in league with the Romans and probably ought to just be killed. All these leaders wound up fleeing to Jerusalem throughout the year, where they all holed up together behind the reasonably sturdy walls of the city where they planned to make their stand.

Vespasian and his son Titus prepared to lay siege to the city from three sides, when an unexpected piece of news came that stopped Vespasian in his tracks. Couriers arrived from Rome with a note, Nero has committed suicide, and Galba has been declared Caesar. Interesting. Wrapped up as he was in the far east of the empire, Vespasian could not have hoped to keep up with the daily politicking in the west, and when, in a matter of a few months, Nero went from undisputed ruler of the greatest empire on earth to quivering child, Vespasian was shocked, but probably not surprised, if that makes sense.

The great revolt in Judea will continue for another few years, but as the next important event in the struggle, the sack of Jerusalem, does not occur for another eighteen whole months, I am going to have to return to it after the yet-to-be-determined number of episodes I'll need to get through just the single year of 69 AD. So before we can keep going with the great revolt, we're going to have to backtrack a little and figure out what led to the shocking note that Nero had committed suicide.

As I said, Nero's erratic behavior was getting really, really old. He was neglecting his official duties, spending all of his time at chariot races, and bankrupting the empire in the process. Not only that, he had initiated his own little reign of terror, and the senators and generals who made up the backbone of the imperial aristocracy all lived in fear of winding up on Nero's hit list. No less a figure than Corbulo, hero of the war in Armenia, had been ordered to commit suicide in 67 AD. It was only a matter of time, really, before Nero paid the price for his fear-inducing extravagances.

In March of 68, a governor of one of the Gallic provinces, Gaius Julius Vindex, had finally had enough. Yet another set of orders had come down, ratcheting up the tax levies to help pay for Nero's total lack of fiscal responsibility. Vindex was a Roman all the way, but he couldn't help but feel for the local Gauls who were being taxed to the breaking point. He heard complaint after complaint from his subjects that things couldn't go on like this, and taking a look around, he believed them. The empire hadn't grown as large as it had, or as strong as it had, by breaking the backs of those that supported it. Vindex decided that Nero and the health of the empire were two ideas that were now mutually exclusive.

But surprisingly, when Vindex declared in March that he was no longer taking orders from the emperor, he also declared that he himself was not looking to become the emperor. Instead, he announced that should Servius Sulpicius Galba, the wise and capable governor of Spain, rise to the occasion that Vindex would back him. But Galba was non-committal, and Vindex was left hanging in Gaul by himself. Nero ordered the governor of Upper Germany, Lucius Virginius Rufus, to crush Vindex, and in short order, the stronger and more capable Virginius did just that, routing Vindex after a short and decisive battle. Vindex committed suicide to avoid capture, but his dream of dislodging Nero did not die with him.

In the glow of victory, Virginius' troops did something unexpected. They declared their general imperator and swore to follow him if he decided to turn on Nero. But Virginius refused to betray the emperor. In the end, despite having now allied himself with Nero, Virginius managed to escape the chaos of the year of the four emperors and slip away unnoticed to live another thirty years in quiet anonymity. Good for him.

Back in Rome, Nero watched all of this unfold with horror, and even though Galba had not joined in Vindex's revolt, it was clear that the old general was a rallying point for the emperor's enemies. So he declared Galba an enemy of the state and ordered him arrested. But this proved to be a fatal miscalculation. Galba had been wavering back and forth on whether or not to be the man so many seemed to want him to be. But when he got the notice that Nero had declared him an enemy of the state, well, that really helped make up his mind, didn't it?

When the arrest warrant for Galba was announced, things quickly got out of hand for Nero. One of the Praetorian prefects, Gaius Nymphidius Sabinus, declared his intention to follow Galba as civil war broke out. With a large chunk of the guard following their leader, Nero suddenly realized that he was in a very tight spot. Afraid for his life, that happens when your bodyguards start hinting that they too would like to see you dead, Nero fled down the road to the port of Ostia where he hoped to lead a fleet east and regroup. But the soldiers at the pier could tell which way the wind was blowing and they refused to obey Nero's orders, taunting him with a line from the Aeneid, Is it so dreadful a thing to die?

Really really spooked now, Nero returned to Rome and tried to figure out how in the hell he was going to get out of this alive. He considered throwing himself at Galba's feet and begging for mercy, then he considered throwing himself at the people's feet and begging them for mercy, but rejected both of those ideas as likely to lead to his swift execution, so he then considered fleeing east and asking the Parthian king for asylum, but realized that that too was a ridiculous idea that would never work. He tried to sleep on it in the palace, but woke up around midnight and realized that the guard had all deserted their posts. Scared out of his wits, he searched the rooms of his friends but found them all empty as well. Recognizing that there was no version of this story that ended well, Nero called out for a slave or a gladiator or anyone to kill him, but no one answered, prompting Nero to exclaim, Have I neither friend nor foe?

No one answered him, but I can answer. Nero may have had no friends, but he was certainly not wanting for foes. Finally, Nero was able to connect with a freedman who agreed to hide the frightened emperor in a villa four miles outside of Rome. Accompanied by a few slaves, a disguised Nero slipped out of the palace and made his way through the gates of the city undetected. Upon his arrival at the villa, he ordered the slaves to begin digging a grave, and allegedly kept repeating over and over again, What an artist the world is losing.

At some point, a courier arrived and delivered the news that Nero had been dreading. The senate had met in an emergency session, declared him a public enemy, and announced that if found, Nero was to be beaten to death. He tried to kill himself to avoid capture, but kept losing his nerve. When the sound of approaching horses began to cut through the night, though, Nero was able to focus, and before the soldiers arrived to collect him, Nero stabbed himself in the throat. When the detachment arrived, they tried to stop the bleeding so Rome could extract the full measure of its vengeance, but Nero was too far gone. As they worked on the wound, he whispered, Too late. This is fidelity.

Nero died on June 9th, 68 AD, at the age of 30. He had ruled Rome for 14 years.

The death of Nero marked the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and would usher in a brief period of chaotic uncertainty known as the Year of the Four Emperors, which we'll start to get into fully next week. The question on the tip of everyone's tongue was, now that there was no Julio-Claudians left, how would legitimacy be conferred upon future emperors? Augustus had been able to establish and maintain imperial authority initially through his own personal brand of ruthless charisma, and the fact that his reign just kept going and going and going, so that by the time he died, it seemed natural that his declared heir Tiberius ought to rule. From there, it had just been an unbroken line of inheritance all the way down to Nero. But now that that line of inheritance was broken, well, what did that mean?

It was like Rome was waking up after being hypnotized. Suddenly, everyone was looking at everyone else, blinking, and wondering what to do now that the Julio-Claudian spell had been broken. Nero had died with no heir, and there was no mechanism to determine which of the dozens of highly ambitious men ought to rule. Nor any way to tell whether or not the masses would accept someone from outside the house of Caesar as their master. Or how about this, maybe the Julio-Claudian period will prove to be a historical aberration. Maybe Rome can return to its republican roots. There was no shortage of questions, and no shortage of ambitious men who claimed to have the answer.

Next week, we'll try to lay the foundation for the seminal year of 69 AD, and give a deeper introduction to the men who will vie for the throne. But I can tell you this much already, the correct answer is Vespasian.