Y12 Ancient History Roman/Julio-Claudian Points Test 19 Religion Administration Order Relations

Question 1

1. What evidence is there that Nero thought he was a god/engaged with the imperial cult? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 1

• The acclamations that Nero received from the Greeks after the donation Corinth in 67AD – Nero Zeus, the Liberator, Nero-Apollo, Nero-Helios, the New Sun, the Saviour and Benefactor of the whole world, do lead us to ask the question as to what Nero thought of his own status.
• Indeed, it might be argued that his behaviour in his last years, such as Tiridates hailing of him as Mithras in 66, does offer a coherent pattern of an increasing preoccupation on Nero’s part with his own status.
• At various times and in various places Nero was associated with many different gods.
• Apollo was his patron, as an artist.
• He even allowed his fair to grow down the back of his neck in imitation of the god.
• Nero the Lyre Player was depicted on a coin issue of 65AD, this would have been controversial, one of the few coins to ever get a mention in a source (Suetonius, life of nero, 25).
• The only previous precedent for a radiant crown was Augustus after his death and deification in AD14.

Question 2

2. What evidence is there that Nero did not think that he was a god/didn’t engage with the imperial cult? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 2

• Our primary sources rarely mention any occasion of Nero exploiting the imperial cult.
• Although neronian court poets such as Calpurnius Siculus praise Nero as a god and may suggest he believed he was a god, this is more literary convention in the mode of the Augustan poets than evidence.
• No cult paraphernalia survives in the west, although the coinage of Nero’s later years bears examination in this connection:
• Coinage depicting Nero that infers divinity could just as easily, more likely even, be due to foreign policy: in 66 with the eastern war concluded to satisfaction, a duponii of Nero on the reverse wearing the crown of the sun could be to distinguish between the different types of coinage, Nero being the first emperor to issue copper and alloy orichalcum coinage.
• The coinage after the detection of the conspiracy of Piso likewise demonstrate Nero’s increasing megalomania, but not necessarily his belief in his own divinity.

Question 3

3. How far did Nero prove tolerant/intolerant towards other religions in Rome and the Wider Empire? (any relevant point for 2 marks).

Answer 3

• However, although Nero seems to have been uninterested in the imperial cult, he was certainly intolerant of non-traditional religions.
• His formal introduction into the priestly colleges, echoing Augustus, partly justified this outlook.
• Tacitus (Annals, 15.44) emphasises how Nero scapegoated the Christians following the Great Fire. But this simply may have been expedient: blaming an already marginal group within Roman society would remove any culpability for the fire from himself, and it was not necessarily a religiously motivated choice.

Question 4

4. How and why did Nero’s impact on administration in Rome/the wider empire change, between his early 5-year reign and the rest of his reign? (any relevant point for 2 marks).

Answer 4

• Given what has been said thus far about Nero’s decadent lifestyle, it is perhaps surprising that he did also enact administrative amendments.
• Although, especially in Suetonius, it is difficult to pinpoint chronology, we may speculate that this may date to his quinquennium.
• Thereafter the sources highlight his self-indulgent behaviour, while the maintenance of the empire was handed over to his subordinates.
• This allowed the emperor the time for the important thing in life to him: pleasure.
• Overall, he did not fundamentally alter the mechanisms of government or administration.

Question 5

5. What impact did Nero’s administration have in Rome during his reign, in terms of architecture and the food supply? (any relevant point for 4 marks).

Answer 5

• Nero continued concern for the provisioning of Rome.
• In 62 when a storm had destroyed 200 corn ships in Ostia and a hundred other vessels had been ruined bringing corn coming up the Tiber, Nero prevented a panic by having spoiled corn dumped in the river as a sign of confidence.
• He also kept the market price down, probably by granting subsidies to corn dealers out of his own funds.
• Two years later he cancelled a trip to Alexandria because he had a seizure in the temple of Vesta, which he took as a warning from the protectoress of the city.
• Late in 64 when the fire had reduced the city to chaos, Nero had supplies brought in from Ostia and neighbouring towns and again lowered the market price of corn.
• Nero showed his interest in finding long-term solutions for the problems of supplying Rome in other ways. Like Julius Caesar, he was concerned with the difficulties of water transport and the dangers of the west Italian coastline for shipping.
• A canal was planned from Lake Avernus to Ostia, securing a safe passage for ships and draining the coastal marshes. It was abandoned.
• After the fire, Suetonius mentions how Nero had planned to expand the city walls to Ostia, though a lack of money prevented it.

Question 6

6. What impact did Nero’s administration have in Rome during his reign, in terms of winning public support/pleasing the plebeians/bread and circuses? (any relevant point for 4 marks).

Answer 6

• Suetonius mentions chariot races, elaborately staged plays and the ludi maximi at which the crowd was showered with tokens redeemable for such lavish items as precious jewels, horses, slaves and houses.
• He knew how to turn any public event into a show, his return from Campania after his mother’s murder or his return from Greece.
• The crowning of Tiridates as King of Armenia, the king made obeisance to Nero in the presence of his PG, the senate and other citizens, while the rest of the population roared from the rooftops.
• Nero also contributed buildings: 57, Amphitheatre constructed of stone on the Campus Martius.
• The elder Pliny notes that for one gladiatorial show, a Roman knight was sent to the black sea for amber, to trim weapons, safety nets and coffins.
• The most important function of the games was to allow the populace at large to see their emperor and to make their feelings known to him, for they had few other opportunities for contact with their sovereign.
• However, Nero’s incognito trips out to the capital did not give him the measure of his people.

Question 7

7. How did Nero initially try to build positive relations with the Senate? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 7

• In a speech to the senate on his accession, the young Nero outlined his future policy.
• He promised to put an end to further encroachment on the senate’s authority.
• Criminal cases concerning Italy and the provinces were to be tried once again in the senatorial court and there was to be an end to the interference of freedmen in state affairs…
“’I will not judge every kind of case myself’, he said, ‘and give too free rein to the influence of a few individuals by hearing prosecutors and defendants behind closed doors. From my house, bribery and favouritism will be excluded. I will keep personal and state affairs separate. The senate is to preserve its ancient functions. By applying to the consuls, people from Italy and the senatorial provinces may have access to its tribunals. I myself will look after the armies under my control.’” (Annals, P.286).

Question 8

8. How did continue to try to build positive relations with the Senate during his early reign? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 8

• Any charges brought by delatores were dismissed. ‘He refused to allow the prosecution of…a junior senators, Carinas Celer, who was accused by a slave.’
• He rejected offers to erect gold and silver statues of himself, refused to accept the title ‘Father of his Country’, and exempted his colleague in the consulship from ‘swearing allegiance, like the other officials, to the emperor’s acts’.
• The senate praised this vigorously.
• Promises of clemency were made in many speeches, and ‘he showed leniency by readmitting to the senate Plautius Lateranus, who had been expelled for adultery with Messalina.’
• With the ‘high-minded guidance’ of Seneca, Nero’s Relationships with the senate was reasonable.
• There were even times when the senate was independent enough to block proposals put forward by the emperor himself, such as Nero’s suggestion of introducing free trade throughout the empire.

Question 9

9. How did the senator Thrasea Paetus oppose Nero’s rule? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 9

• Individual senators spoke out: one was the stoic, Thrasea Paetus, who was very influential in Nero’s early reign and who was open in his dislike in the many adulatory decrees passed by the senate.
• Tacitus says that it was his practice to ‘pass over the flatteries in silence or with curt agreement’, but when a decree of thanksgiving for Nero’s escape from his mother was being discussed, Thrasea left the senate house, thereby endangering himself.
• However, when the treason law was revived in 62 and the praetor Antistius Sosanius was charged with writing verse satirising the emperor, ‘Thrasea’s independence made the others less servile.’
• He had argued against the death sentence, and the rest of the senate – despite Nero’s anger – supported him.
• In the following year, Nero forbade Thrasea to accompany other senators to Antium to celebrate the birth of Nero’s daughter Claudia, and as a form of protest Thrasea withdrew from public life for three years.

Question 10

10. How and why did the relationship between Nero and the Senate disintegrate after Burrhus and Seneca? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 10

• Adulatory decrees reached ‘new depths of sycophancy or abasement’ after Burrhus’ death and Seneca’s retirement.
• Nero was under the influence of his mistress Poppaea, who organised false charges against his wife, Octavia.
• As a result, Octavia was divorced, banished and later killed, and the senate celebrated the murder with a decree of thanksgiving.
• Two years after Poppaea’s marriage to Nero she died while pregnant (supposedly from a kick from Nero) and the senate deified her and her daughter.
• With the help of the low-born PG prefect Tigellinus, whose cruelty and debauchery offended all dignified Romans, Nero’s artistic activities and extravagances increased.
• He needed massive funds, but had already drained the treasury and deprived the senate of its right to mint copper coins; he therefore now took advantage of any opportunity to confiscate the property of senators.

Question 11

11. How and why did the relationship between Nero and the Senate collapse during/in the wake of the Pisonian conspiracy? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 11

• Dissatisfaction with nero among senators increased, until in 65 it culminated in a serious conspiracy against his life.
• A plot involving 41 senators was formed to replace Nero with Piso, a member of one of the remaining republican families, formed by Lucan the poet, Faenius Rufus (a PG prefect) and the consul-designate Plautius Lateranus.
• There were also a number of the guards involved.
• Individual motives varied, but most were probably disgusted with nero’s criminal record, his abolition of senatorial rights and his lowering of the imperial position.
• Many distinguished senators, once the plot was uncovered, innocent or guilty, were executed or forced to commit suicide.
• Seneca, Lucan, Consul Junius Vestinus Atticus (against whom there was no charge) and the consul-designate Lateranus.
• 19 deaths and many exiles were the result of this.
• Thrasea and Marcius Barea Soranus were also both killed, though not involved in the plot, because both had been outspoken against Nero.
• In the remaining years of his reign, Nero’s informants were everywhere; wealthy and prominent senators were not safe from Tigellinus, on whose authority leading Romans could be destroyed without even the pretence of a trial.
• Some years of this tyrannical power almost annihilated the senatorial class – which Suetonius maintains was Nero’s avowed purpose… “Often he hinted broadly that it was not his intention to spare the remaining senators, but would one day wipe out the entire senatorial order.”

Question 12

12. How and why do the primary sources reveal the difficult relationship between Nero and the Senate? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 12

• Our sources are primarily senatorial (or identified with that class) and as such would sympathise with the senate’s humiliation at Nero’s hands.
• Their stories of such offences, for example how descendants of noble families forced to perform on stage (Tacitus, Annals 14.14.) clearly reveal this bias.
• However, Nero’s attitude does seem to change during the course of his reign, with early pandering to the senate replaced by a viciousness that the sources revel in recording.
• Despite everything, the senate remained remarkably compliant with Nero throughout his reign, even coming to meet him in ‘festive garb’ following the announcement of Agrippina’s death (Annals, 14.13).
• One senatorial figure, however, requires particular attention@ Thrasea Paetus, who features in Tacitus with an unusual voice of opposition.
• His willingness to speak out marks the beginning of a phenomenon which is usually called ‘stoic’ opposition (which continued under the Flavians).
• Paetus is used by Tacitus as the model of senatorial virtue. For example, when Nero announces the death of Agrippina, Paetus stands and pointedly exits the senate house (14.12).
• However noble this gesture, even Tacitus acknowledges that it merely ‘provided grounds for danger to himself, but did not present to others with an entry to freedom.’ His death is marked in an extended passage in the Annals (16.25-35).

Question 13

13. Describe the relationship between Nero and the Equestrian Order? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 13

• While individual equestrians fared little better than the senators, as a class Nero did perhaps see them as a useful alternative to the senate.
• Equestrians featured heavily among his entourage of paid ‘fans’ and specially trained applauders earned 400,000 sesterces a performance (Suetonius, Nero 20).
• The most prominent equestrian was Gaius Ofonius Tigellinus, joint commander of the PG from 62 to 68.
• Tacitus is scathing in his treatment of Tigellinus, claiming that he corrupted Nero and introduced him to every kind of depravity before finally deserting him when his fall became inevitable.
• Tigellinus is another example of how the ambitious and unscrupulous individual could prosper under the Principate.
• However, his universal condemnation after his suicide also highlights the hatred such individuals received, especially in our sources.
• The equestrian order received the honour of separate seats in the Circus Maximus, an extension of the privilege they had enjoyed in the theatre since the republic.
• In 63 Nero abolished the trench around the circus maximus, which protected spectators, in order to provide a row of special seats for the knights.
• In 55 the knight Arruntius Stella was put in charge of theatrical and circus shows, and Claudius Iulianus was dispatched to the Black Sea to collect Amber for gladiatorial shows.
• Tacitus notes that Roman Knights, as well as Italian and provincial visitors to the capital, detested the spectacle of the emperor performing in Rome in 65

Question 14

14. Describe the relationship between Nero and the Plebeian Order? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 14

• Ultimately however, it was with the plebs that Nero found the adulation that he so craved.
• Tacitus is typically judgemental of the plebs in this (14.14) but Nero clearly understood how to win their affection.
• Suetonius records that Nero provided an immense variety of entertainments (Nero, 11), Nero also made a point of being generous through the practice of largesse, as had all the Julio-Claudians before him.
• The Sestertius of 64 depicting the corn dole suggests that Nero wished such actions to be celebrated, reminding the public of his generosity after the event.
• With Nero’s frequent entertainments, in particular his love of chariot-racing (Suetonius, Nero 22), and his large-scale handouts, it is telling that in our sources it is only at the very end of his reign that the people began to turn against him.
• Suetonius notes the popular resentment about his profiteering in grain (Nero 45) yet even with this Nero was still sufficiently popular that, several years after his death, pretenders impersonating Nero still had people flock to their banners (Tacitus, Histories, 2.8-9).
• Ultimately, Nero was a populist Emperor, and as much as he victimised the upper classes, the urban plebs and the majority of the provincials continued to revel in the benefits provided by their pleasure-driven princeps.
• The plebs did seriously oppose the decision by Nero to divorce Octavia in favour of Poppaea.
• The mob climbed the capitol to give thanks and offerings for Nero changing his mind, overturning statues of Poppaea and then breaking into the palace, where Nero turned soldiers on them.
• Poppaea was understandably nervous of what nero might do, but even though he chose repression, Nero was careful to explain his actions to them.
• Anicetus was induced to testify to his adultery with Octavia before Nero and a council of intimates; an edict explained that Octavia had been found guilty of attempts on the loyalty of the fleet at Misenum, seducing its commander and then destroying the fruit of her adultery with an abortion.
• When Octavia left for Pandateria, she inspired pity but no further resistance.
• Subsequent events showed that even this didn’t damage the popularity of Nero with the masses.
• The plebs were loyal to the end, even when piteous for the persecuted Christians: even at the games held in his Vatican gardens Nero felt safe walking amongst them, and in his last extremity, he was thinking of appealing to them from the rostra in the forum and asking for their support.