Y12 Ancient History Roman/Julio-Claudian Points Test 20 Death and Legacy of Nero JC Dynasty

Question 1

1. Describe the origins of the revolt of Vindex? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 1

• While Nero was in Greece opposition to him grew not only in Rome, but in the western provinces particularly.
• The second half of Nero’s reign saw a number of Roman provinces exhibiting signs of discontent within Roman Rule (Dio 63.22.1): areas had rebelled under Boudicca in 61 (with further uprisings later in 68 and 69); Judaea had rebelled in 66 (lasting until 73).
• The most terrifying, from a Roman perspective, was that in Gaul headed by Gaius Julius Vindex.
• Julius Vindex was the governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, and with the support of other governors planned to rebel against Nero.
• Suetonius (Nero, 40) ses the revolt as divine retribution for Nero’s mismanagement of the empire.

Question 2

2. How does the primary evidence represent Vindex? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 2

• Vindex himself is also presented as a suitably heroic figurehead@
“A man strong in physique and shrewd in intelligence, skilled in warfare and not lacking in courage to meet any big challenge. He also had a passionate love of freedom and boundless ambition.”
• Since our source considered Nero’s removal a blessing, despite the following year of intense civil war, Vindex becomes the antithesis to Nero, a barbarian who has adopted Roman culture becomes its champion to remove a philhellene emperor who had betrayed his people.
• The impassioned speech with Dio gives to Vindex (63.22.3-6) unusually for Dio rendered as direct speech, reiterates many of Dio’s earlier criticisms of Nero, turning Vindex into a spokesperson for judgement and retribution.
• The final words ‘rescue yourselves and rescue the romans as well! Liberate the entire world!’ (63.22.6) present Vindex as acting for the common good. Indeed his own coinage, issues at the time of the revolt, makes similar claims (e.g. the SPQR Imagery).
• The coin’s inscription communicates two ideas about Vindex’s revolt: first, that it was motivated by a desire for freedom from oppression; and secondly his claim to have acted for the Senate and people of Rome.
• The latter suggests that the revolt was about the nature of governance rather than Gallic nationalism, though Suetonius’ constant use of the term ‘Gallic’ implies disagreement on this point.

Question 3

3. What was Nero’s response to the revolt of Vindex? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 3

• Nero was in Neapolis when the revolt started (Suetonius, 40) and did nothing for eight days.
• However, on the surface at least, Vindex’s revolt may not have seemed that serious: Vindex was the governor of a province without a legionary garrison and Nero had no reason to doubt the loyalty of the local urban cohorts at Lugdunum or the nearest legions, in Upper Germany under the newly appointed Lucius Verginius Rufus.
• In fact Nero seems to have welcomed the rebellion because it offered ready-made excuses to levy fines and order executions (Dio, 63.26.3, Suetonius 40).
• Evidently through his lack of foresight or over-confidence, Nero was seemingly untroubled by the ‘call to freedom’ from Gaul – according to Dio he chose this moment to announce his development of a new type of water-organ (63.26.5).
• Nero could have capitalised on the fact that, once Verginius refused his troops to become emperor himself, their only choice was to return to allegiance to Nero, after having crushed Vindex. Nero appears not to have realised this, nor capitalised upon it.

Question 4

4. Why did Nero’s response to the revolt of Vindex change once Galba, the legate of Spain, join it? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 4

• However, this changed when Servius Sulpicius Galba, legate of hispania tarraconensis since 60, was declared emperor by his soldiers on 9 June 68, following Vindex’ request for help from him.
• Dio notes that Vindex was not after supreme power, but supported Galba (63.23.1).
• The news of this shocked Nero (Suetonius 42, Dio 63.27.1) and he now desperately needed to take action.
• Suetonius (44) alleges that he merely packed up his stage equipment and selected concubines. Such parody in Suetonius and Dio nevertheless has a kernel of truth, in that Nero did little of practical value in the aftermath of the revolt.

Question 5

5. What were the main events of the revolt of Vindex? (any relevant point for 3 marks).

Answer 5

• The details of Vindex’s rebellion are in many particulars confused, as the versions in our extant sources are not entirely consistent.
• It appears, however, that late in AD67 Vindex took an initiative by communicating with colleagues in the provinces to sound them out regarding their attitudes to Nero.
• That Nero did not make any dramatic counter-moves at that stage is not, however, surprising: Vindex’s province was not armed and his status was questionable.
• In any case Nero will have believed that the legions on the Rhine, under Lucius Verginius Rufus and Gaius Fonteius Capito, and in Spain, under Servius Suplicius Galba, were more than sufficient to deal with any rebellion that might erupt in western Europe.and with the anniversary of Agrippina’s murder.
• His objections to Nero centred largely around the matricide and the emperor’s unbecoming conduct – that is, his Hellenism.
• Galba was supported by his neighbour Otho in Lusitania and by three legionary commanders.
• Nonetheless, Galba was circumspect in his own actions, and on 2nd April claimed to be the ‘legate of the senate and people of Rome’ rather than emperor.
• Vindex declared his rebellion in mid-march, perhaps to coincide with the Ides and its association with Caesar’s assassination.

Question 6

6. How was the revolt of Vindex actually defeated? (any relevant point for 2 marks).

Answer 6

• Verginius Rufus, on the other hand, gathered the forces of Upper Germany and advanced into Gaul as far as Vesontio.
• Despite planning to meet with Vindex, the ill-discipline and aggressive nature of Rufus’ soldiers won out and they fell upon Vindex’s army (63.24.3).
• The slaughter that resulted, with 20,000 of Vindex’s men being killed, prompted Vindex’s suicide.

Question 7

7. What was the significance of the revolt of Vindex? (any relevant point for 2 marks).

Answer 7

• Despite Vindex’s origins and the inevitable comparison of his movement with the overtly nationalistic rebellion in AD69 of another Romanized provincial, Gaius Julius Civilis, the coinage associated with Vindex’s movement makes it clear that its objective was no more radical than the removal of Nero from power and his replacement by another princeps: it was not a nationalistic revolt aimed at removing the imperial power from Gaul.
• Tacitus assessed its true significance when he wrote (Histories I.4) ‘the secret of empire was out, that an emperor could be made elsewhere than at Rome’.
• In its turn, this demonstrates the vanity of the hope that Augustus’ military reforms had brought to an end the politically disruptive power of the Roman Army and its commanders, which had brought the old republic to its knees.
• Thus, while Vindex’s rebellion in itself achieved little, it was the initial domino in the cascade that led to Nero’s downfall and the end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.

Question 8

8. Why did the revolt of Galba finally end the reign of Nero? (any relevant point for 2 marks).

Answer 8

• The failure of Vindex should have settled the matter for nero, but his lack of determined action left the way clear for Galba.
• Rufus resfused his troops’ suggestion that he become emperor himself, referring the matter of who should govern to ‘the senate and the people of Rome’ (Dio 63.25.2).
• However, after Vindex’s death, Galba – the veteran aristocrat – declared himself ‘Legate of the Senate and the Roman People’.
• His own troops hailed him as imperator, other commanders joined him, and he followed the practice of Claudius in offering the PG 30,000 secterces per man.
• Certainly Galba saw himself as a liberator, a man restoring Rome to her true self, as revealed in his coinage (Denarius) which invokes the coinage minted by the assassins of Julius Caesar who dubbed themselves ‘liberators’, the pileus, a cap of a free person, between two daggers.

Question 9

9. How did the PG help Galba and help finally end the reign of Nero? (any relevant point for 2 marks).

Answer 9

• Tigellinus had deserted Nero: he was now without the support of the PG which, with the senate, recognised Galba as emperor and declared Nero a public enemy.
• Following Vesontio and Nero’s reaction to it, the PG withdrew its support from Nero, induced it seems by bribes offered to it in the name of Galba by its commander, Nymphidius Sabinus.

Question 10

10. How did the Senate help Galba and help finally end the reign of Nero? (any relevant point for 2 marks).

Answer 10

• The Senate now chose to endorse Galba officially and declared Nero a public enemy (63.27.2b), doubtless justifying this with the popularity of Vindex’s rebellion and the deep resentment of Nero (Suetonius, Nero 45).

Question 11

11. How did Nero finally die? (any relevant point for 2 marks).

Answer 11

• Nero had alienated the upper classes and had neglected the army, and for an emperor to survive under these conditions was very difficult.
• Nero, stripped of all support, elected to flee Rome.
• Dio presents his final moment in a suitable theatrical manner: Nero assumes a tragic role (63.28.5) with the notorious final words ‘Jupiter, what an artist perishes with me!’.
• Soon after, the Senate declared for Galba and turned against Nero.
• Nero left Rome and committed suicide.
• He fled from Rome and hid in the house of one of his freedmen, but chose to commit suicide rather than wait for the soldiers to arrest him.
• His death at the age of 31 brought to an end the supremacy of the Julian and Claudian gens.

Question 12

12. How far did Nero himself bear responsibility for the fall of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty? (any relevant point for 2 marks).

Answer 12

• It is clear that many – particularly senators – resented Nero’s autocracy oppressive and unacceptable.
• After a favourable beginning, he had overstepped the Augustan principles with which he had set out and was behaving in a manner which was not only offensive, but went against a broader range of traditionalist sentiment.
• This turned many against him who would otherwise have suffered in silence.
• Nero’s lack of interest in his armies and his treatment of some of its commanders during his later years fuelled this disenchantment.
• Yet Nero’s unpopularity was not universal, hence the pretenders and Galba’s warning to Piso Licinianus, his proposed successor, that would be some of his subjects who would be missing Nero.
• By AD68 there were far fewer men in high places with direct familial connections with the old republic.
• Thus Nero can be said to have done little damage to the Principate as an institution, but his behaviour did raise questions about Dynasticism, and made the military a political force separately again.

Question 13

13. How did Tacitus sum up the response to Nero’s death in his histories? any relevant point for 2 marks).

Answer 13

“The senators were happy and at once used their new freedom of speech more freely since they had an emperor who was still absent; the most important of the knights were next to the senators in feeling satisfaction; the respectable part of the people, attached to powerful families, and the clients and freedmen of the condemned and exiled, were full of hope. But the base plebs, addicted to the circus and the theatre, and the worst of the slaves, and those who had wasted their money and who were maintained by the emperor, to his own disgrace, were resentful and open to rumour. The praetorians, long accustomed to their oath to the Caesars, had been led to depose Nero by diplomacy and pressure rather than their own wish.”