MAP 6. Neronian Rome
THE GREAT FIRE
INTRODUCTION
The major fire that broke out in Rome in AD 64 marked an important turning point in Nero’s reign and had political repercussions that went far beyond the immediate effects of the fire itself. By 64, Nero had already exhibited erratic and autocratic behavior. But up to that point, there is no evidence of general disapproval. The devastation of the fire caused an enormous drop in his broader popularity, and the huge cost of reconstruction would almost certainly have alienated the wealthier classes in Italy and farther afield.
Rome had been subjected to continuous fires from at least the time of the first recorded one, after the sack of the city by the Gauls in 390 BC. The crowded nature of the city, with multistory buildings containing much flammable material, made such occurrences inevitable. But the fire of AD 64 stands out for its scale and ferocity. It broke out on the night of July 18–19 south of the Palatine, in the shops, with their flammable booths, that crowded the area of the Circus Maximus, and it spread north on the eastern side of the Palatine as far as the Esquiline. It came in two waves, lasting nine days in all. It supposedly reduced to rubble three of the fourteen districts into which Augustus had organized the city (allowance must be made for exaggeration), and only four districts escaped entirely. Temples, private homes, shops, and tenements all succumbed to the flames. Among the buildings destroyed was Nero’s new palace, known as the Domus Transitoria. The Campus Martius was apparently not affected, and its buildings were opened to homeless inhabitants of the city.
Nero seems to have behaved admirably. He tried to prevent the blaze from spreading by creating firebreaks, which may have led to the suspicion that he was pulling down buildings to get land he needed to expand his own palace. He made provision for those who had lost their homes, took a personal interest in the rebuilding program, and took the opportunity to introduce a new building code in Rome in order to prevent a repetition of the disaster in the future. He reimposed the height limit earlier imposed by Augustus but since then generally ignored. He regulated timber construction and prescribed the use of fire-resistant stone. Streets were to be wider and regular, and tenements were to be made less congested by the construction of internal courtyards and porticos on the outside. He also provided aid. He had supplies transported from Ostia and other towns and reduced the price of corn. Debris was carried away without cost. In fact, it was placed out of bounds, presumably to discourage looting, especially for gold and silver, and then taken down the Tiber by now-empty corn ships. The supply of public water was controlled by supervisors. The building of porticos was financed in part by Nero’s personal funds. Private individuals were encouraged to invest in construction. The jurist Gaius records a Neronian measure that enacted that any wealthy Latin (that is, someone with limited citizen rights) who invested half his assets in building at Rome would obtain full citizenship. This measure might well have been introduced just after the fire.
The rebuilding of large parts of Rome was extremely costly, and the unpopularity this caused was aggravated by the expropriation of land for the grandiose palace, the Domus Aurea (Golden House), with its extensive parkland, that Nero planned for the center of the city. The poor would no doubt have been seriously affected, since proper planning to discourage overcrowding would lead to a shortage of accommodations and pressure to increase rents. Moreover, the fire followed on the heels of the costly campaigns in Britain and against Parthia, inevitably creating a serious financial crisis. Tacitus goes on to describe the ruthless measures that Nero undertook to acquire money in Italy and the provinces. The free grain distribution had to be suspended for a while. Some troops were not paid. Pliny the Elder seems to imply that there was widespread confiscation in Africa, when the six landowners who owned half the province were put to death by Nero (Plin. HN 18.35), and temple treasures were melted down. There was further devaluation of the coinage, the number of aurei to the pound of gold being increased from forty (or perhaps forty-two) to forty-five and denarii to the pound from eighty-four to ninety-six.
The general discontent resulted in a public receptive to rumors that Nero had instigated the fire and planned to give the rebuilt city the name Neropolis (Suet. Ner. 55). Belief in his guilt seems to have become firmly established by the end of the first century, but Tacitus is insistent that the question of Nero’s involvement has to remain open. The serious reservations expressed by Tacitus, if not by the other sources, about Nero’s responsibility, at least for the initial phase of the fire, cast serious doubt on the case against him. There was a full moon at the time, hardly a convenient condition for arson, and in any case neither outbreak started in the area that Nero would develop for his Domus Aurea. The energetic measures he took to prevent the spread of the fire, as described by Tacitus, speak against the notion of its being deliberately set. Also, the fire destroyed Nero’s Domus Transitoria (Tac. Ann. 15.39.1). There were widespread reports of arsonists and of people who were hindering the efforts to fight the flames, and these individuals were widely believed to have been Nero’s agents—they may well have been looters, and it is of course not out of the question, even if unlikely, that they were Christians. Adding to this belief that Nero was the instigator was the fact that after six days the fire was under control but suddenly broke out again, near the estates of Nero’s minister Tigellinus. Contributing to this negative image was the claim that Nero recited his own poetry with the burning city as his backdrop; here, again, Tacitus, unlike Suetonius (Ner. 38.2) and Dio (62.16.1–2), is cautious, observing that the claim began as a rumor (Ann. 15.39.3). In a context later than the fire, after the Pisonian conspiracy, Dio records that Nero entered the orchestra of the theater and recited some Trojan compositions of his own (62.29.1). Tacitus probably refers to this incident in his account of Nero’s poetic recital in the theater at the Quinquennial Games in AD 65 (Ann. 16.4.2). Could these compositions be the source of the rumor?
The most dramatic consequence of the fire was the persecution and horrific treatment of the Christians.
SOURCES
A disastrous fire occurs, the responsibility for which is assigned generally to Nero; Tacitus alone expresses uncertainty.
Plin. HN 17.5. These were nettle trees …,1 and when we were young, Caecina Largus, one of the city’s notables, would show them off in the grounds of his house.2 They lasted (since we have discussed the great longevity of trees) until the fire of the emperor Nero and with attention would have remained green and youthful had not that particular emperor speeded up the death of trees as well.3
Octavia 831–33. Nero: Let the roofs of Rome soon collapse beneath my flames, and let fires and falling buildings overwhelm the guilty population—and loathsome want, too, and cruel hunger and grief!
Tac. Ann. 15.38.1. A disaster followed, whether accidental or plotted by the emperor is unclear (for the sources have both versions), but it was worse and more calamitous than all the disasters that have befallen this city from raging fires.4
Suet. Ner. 38.1. But Nero spared neither his people nor his city’s walls. When someone said in the course of a general conversation, “After I die let the earth catch fire,”5 he replied, “No, while I am alive.” And he clearly made that happen.
Dio 62.16.1. Nero thereupon set his heart on something he had probably long been wishing to do, namely to destroy in his lifetime the whole city and his whole realm; at least he, too, declared Priam to have been incredibly fortunate in having witnessed the simultaneous destruction of both his country and his kingdom. … 17.3. There was not a curse that the people did not utter against Nero, although they did not state his name, avoiding it by merely cursing “those who had set fire to the city.”
The fire breaks out.
Tac. Ann. 15.38.2. It started in the part of the Circus adjacent to the Palatine and Caelian hills. There, amid shops containing merchandise of a combustible nature, the fire immediately gained strength as soon as it broke out and, whipped up by the wind, engulfed the entire length of the Circus. This was because there were no dwellings with solid enclosures, no temples ringed with walls, and no other obstacle of any kind in its way.
The devastation is horrific, and there are reports of human agency.
Tac. Ann. 15.38.3. The blaze spread wildly, overrunning the flat areas first and then climbing to the heights before once again ravaging the lower sections. It outstripped all defensive measures because of the speed of its deadly advance and the vulnerability of the city, with its narrow streets twisting this way and that, and with its irregular blocks of buildings, which was the nature of old Rome.6
4. In addition, there was the wailing of panic-stricken women; there were people very old and very young; there were those trying to save themselves and those trying to save others, dragging invalids along or waiting for them; and these people, some hanging back, some rushing along, hindered all relief efforts. 5. And often, as they looked back, they found themselves under attack from the flames at the sides or in front, or if they got away to a neighboring district, that also caught fire, and even those areas they had believed far distant they found to be in the same plight. 6. Eventually, unsure what to avoid and what to head for, they crowded the roads or scattered over the fields. Even though escape lay open to them, some chose death because they had lost all their property, even their daily livelihood; others did so from love of family members whom they had been unable to rescue. 7. And nobody dared fight the fire: there were repeated threats from numerous people opposing efforts to extinguish it, and others openly hurled in firebrands and yelled that they “had their instructions.” This was to give them more freedom to loot or else they were indeed under orders.
Suet. Ner. 38.1. As if he were offended by the unsightliness of the old buildings and by the narrow, winding streets, he set fire to the city, and did it so openly that a number of ex-consuls caught servants of his on their estates with kindling and torches in their hands and did not touch them.7 Furthermore, some granaries in the area of the Golden House whose land he particularly coveted were demolished by military engines—because they were built with stone walls—and then set alight.
2. For six days and seven nights, it was a raging cataclysm, with the plebs forced to seek shelter among the monuments and tombs.8 In addition to huge numbers of apartment blocks, there also went up in flames at that time homes of generals of old, still decorated with enemy spoils; temples of the gods promised in vows and consecrated by the kings, or later in the days of the Punic and Gallic wars; and anything else memorable or worth seeing that had survived from antiquity.
Dio 62.16.2. In secret, he sent men all over the place pretending to be drunk or up to some other mischief and had them set one, two, or more fires in various areas of town.9 The result was that people were totally perplexed, unable to find how the calamity started or how to end it, though they did observe and hear many strange things. 3. There was nothing to be seen other than a lot of fires, as in a military camp, and nothing to be heard in people’s conversations except “Such and such is on fire,” “Where?” “How?” “Who started it?” and “Help!” Extraordinary bewilderment gripped everybody everywhere, and they began to run around in different directions like madmen. 4. Some people while helping others would learn that their own homes were burning; others would learn that theirs had been destroyed before they were even told they were on fire. Some would run out of their buildings into the alleyways with the notion that they could do something to help from outside, and others would run in from the streets thinking they would accomplish something even inside. 5. The shrieking and wailing of children, women, men, and the old all together was endless, so that between the smoke and the uproar it was impossible to see anything or have any idea of what was happening; and as a result one could see some standing there speechless, as if they were dumb.
6. Meanwhile, many who were carrying out their personal effects, and many, too, who were stealing those of others, would wander into each other and trip over their bundles. They could not go forward, but neither could they stand still; they would push, and be pushed, bowl others over, and be bowled over themselves. 7. Many were suffocated, and many were crushed, so that none of all the misfortunes that can befall people in such a predicament failed to overtake them. They had no chance of escaping anywhere easily, and anyone who survived an immediate crisis died when he fell into another.
17.1. Nor did these things all take place on one day; they occurred over several days and nights. Many houses were destroyed because of the lack of help, and many were also set alight by the very people who came to lend a hand.10 This was because the soldiers, especially those on night watch, had their focus on looting and not only failed to put out fires but even started fresh ones.
Tac. Ann. 15.39.1. Nero was at Antium at the time, and he did not return to the city until the fire was approaching that building of his by which he had connected the Palatine residence with the Gardens of Maecenas.11 But stopping the fire from consuming the Palatine residence, Nero’s house, and everything in the vicinity proved impossible. 2. However, to relieve the homeless and fugitive populations, Nero opened up the Campus Martius, the monuments of Agrippa, and even his own gardens, and he erected makeshift buildings to house the destitute crowds.12
There is a rumor that Nero had performed a poem during the fire.
Tac. Ann. 15.39.2. Vital supplies were shipped up from Ostia and neighboring municipalities, and the price of grain was dropped to three sestertii.13 3. These were measures with popular appeal, but they proved a dismal failure, because the rumor had spread that, at the very time that the city was ablaze, Nero had appeared on his private stage and sung about the destruction of Troy, drawing a comparison between the sorrows of the present and the disasters of old.
Suet. Ner. 38.2. Nero looked out over this conflagration from the tower of Maecenas, delighting in the “beauty of the flames,” as he put it, and he sang “The Capture of Troy,” dressed in his stage costume.14 3. Moreover, to lay his hands on as much plunder and spoils as he possibly could, he undertook to remove the cadavers and debris at no cost, while allowing none to approach the remnants of their own property; and with contributions that he not only received but actually demanded, he came close to draining the provinces as well as the fortunes of individuals.
Dio 62.17.2. While such things were going on in various spots, the wind caught the flames and drove them together against the remaining buildings. The result was that nobody thought any longer about personal property or houses. All the survivors stood in any seemingly safe spot and looked at what appeared to be a number of islands or many cities all ablaze at the same time. 3. No longer were they distressed over the loss of their possessions but now lamented the public calamity and reflected on how once before most of the city had been devastated like that, by the Gauls. Such were the feelings of everybody else, many of them in their distress actually jumping into flames.
18.1. Not so Nero, who climbed to the highest point of his palace, from which most of the conflagration could best be seen, and, putting on his lyre player’s costume, sang what he called “The Destruction of Troy” but what was actually perceived as being “The Destruction of Rome.”15
The fire is finally suppressed, only to break out again. The extent of the devastation is vast.
Tac. Ann. 15.40.1. Finally, after five days, the blaze was brought to a halt at the foot of the Esquiline.16 Buildings had been demolished over a vast area so that the fire’s unremitting violence would be faced only with open ground and bare sky. But before the panic had abated or the plebs’ hopes had revived, the fire resumed its furious onslaught, though in more open areas of the city. As a result, there were fewer human casualties, but the destruction of temples and of porticos designed as public amenities was more widespread. 2. And that particular conflagration caused a greater scandal because it had broken out on Tigellinus’s Aemilian estates;17 and it looked as if Nero was seeking the glory of founding a new city, one that was to be named after him.18 In fact, of the fourteen districts into which Rome is divided, four were still intact, three had been leveled to the ground, and in the seven others a few ruined and charred vestiges of buildings were all that remained.19
41.1. To put a figure on the houses, tenement buildings, and temples that were lost would be no easy matter. But religious buildings of the most time-honored sanctity were burned down: the temple that Servius Tullius had consecrated to Luna;20 the great altar and sanctuary that the Arcadian Evander had consecrated to Hercules the Helper; the temple of Jupiter Stator offered in a vow by Romulus;21 the palace of Numa; and the shrine of Vesta holding the Penates of the Roman people.22 Other casualties were rich spoils taken through our many victories; fine specimens of Greek art; and antique and authentic works of literary genius. As a result, though surrounded by the great beauty of the city as it grew again, older people still remember many things that could not be replaced. 2. There were those who observed that this fire started on July 19, which was the date on which the Senones captured and burned the city.23 Others have taken their interest so far as to compute equal numbers of years, months, and days between the two fires.24
Dio 62.17. The disaster that the city experienced then was without parallel earlier or later, apart from the Gallic sack. The entire Palatine Hill, the theater of Taurus, and some two-thirds of the rest of the city went up in flames, and the loss of life was incalculable.
Nero exploits the destruction caused by the fire to construct an extravagant palatial complex, the “Golden House” (Domus Aurea), and to regulate building within the city.
Suet. Ner. 31.1. However, being more prodigal in his building than in any other area, he [Nero] constructed a house that ran all the way from the Palatine to the Esquiline.25 This he initially called the Domus Transitoria, but later, after it had burned down and been rebuilt, he renamed it the Golden House.26 With regard to its dimensions and splendor, it would suffice to note the following features. Its vestibule was such that it contained a colossal statue of him that stood 120 feet high, and so spacious was it [this vestibule] that its triple portico was a mile long.27 Likewise, the pool was the size of a sea and was surrounded with buildings made to appear like cities, and there were also tracts of land of different sorts—tilled fields, vineyards, and woods—with large numbers of domestic and wild animals of all kinds.
2. In the other areas of the structure, everything was overlaid with gold and studded with precious stones and mother-of-pearl. The dining rooms had ceilings made of ivory panels that could rotate for flowers to be scattered from above, and were fitted with pipes for dispensing perfume. The principal dining room had a dome that, day and night, was continuously revolving like the heavens, and there were baths running with seawater and sulfurous water.28 When he [Nero] had finished the house in this style and was dedicating it, his approval of it was limited to the statement that he had at last begun to have shelter fit for a human being.
Tac. Ann. 15.42.1. In fact, Nero took advantage of the homeland’s destruction to build a palace. It was intended to inspire awe not so much with precious stones and gold (long familiar and commonplace in the life of luxury) as with its fields and lakes, and with woods on one side, replicating wild country, and with open spaces and views on the other. The architects and engineers were Severus and Celer, who had the ingenuity and audacity to attempt to create by artifice what nature had denied and to amuse themselves with the emperor’s resources.29 2. For they had undertaken to dig a navigable channel from Lake Avernus all the way to the mouth of the Tiber, taking it along the desolate shoreline or through the barrier of the hills.30 In fact, one comes across no aquifer here to provide a water supply. There are only the Pomptine marshes, all else being cliffs or arid ground—and even if forcing a way through this had been possible, it would have involved an extreme and unjustifiable effort. But Nero was ever one to seek after the incredible. He attempted to dig out the heights next to Avernus, and traces of his futile hopes remain to this day.31
43.1. As for space that remained in the city after Nero’s housebuilding, it was not built up in a random and haphazard manner, as after the burning by the Gauls. Instead, there were rows of streets properly surveyed, spacious thoroughfares, buildings with height limits, and open areas.32 Porticos had been added, too, to protect the façade of the tenement buildings.33 2. These porticos Nero undertook to erect from his own pocket, and he also undertook to return to their owners the building lots, cleared of debris. He added grants, prorated according to a person’s rank and domestic property, and established time limits within which houses or tenement buildings were to be completed in order for claimants to acquire the money.34
THE CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION
After his account of the Great Fire and of Nero’s response to the crisis that it created, Tacitus goes on to describe one of its more dramatic consequences. People started to hold the emperor responsible for the disaster, and he in turn sought scapegoats, finding ideal candidates in the already unpopular Christians. What follows is possibly the most famous passage of Tacitus, in which he describes the arrest and conviction of the Christians and the horrific punishments inflicted on them, arguably the first Christian “persecution.” So horrific was their treatment that it elicited popular sympathy.
This section of Tacitus, and he is the only ancient source for the events, is of enormous historical interest, yet it is plagued by problems, and at least as early as the late nineteenth century it was rejected in its entirety as an interpolated Christian forgery (Hochart [1885]). This extreme view is not now generally accepted by scholars. The language and style is perfectly Tacitean, without any of the exaggerations that one might expect in a forged piece. Also, while the passage is clearly anti-Neronian, the Christians do not emerge from it in a particularly good light. The author, whether Tacitus or another, believes that they are innocent, but he is clearly hostile to them. Hence, if this passage is an interpolation added sometime before the end of the fourth century (when the Christian writer Sulpicius Severus cites it), it would have to be an almost unbelievably brilliant piece of deception by a true master forger who was prepared to create a negative image of his own cause in order to throw the skeptical reader off the scent.
While the passage seems undoubtedly Tacitean (as argued most recently by Shaw [2015]), it must be acknowledged that it poses some intriguing difficulties. First, while argumenta ex silentio are never definitive, in this case they seem particularly compelling. Neither Suetonius nor Dio, both of whom provide detailed accounts of the fire, refer to any subsequent mistreatment of the Christians. They are adamant, of course, that Nero was responsible for the fire, and they would perhaps not want to muddy the waters about the guilt by suggesting that another party was suspected. But this would not have precluded their introducing the Christians as scapegoats, as Tacitus does. Suetonius (Ner. 33–38) goes out of his way to list examples of Nero’s cruelty but says nothing about the repercussions for the Christians, and his only reference to the sect in his Life of Nero is in a quite different context. There, among meritorious actions of the emperor, he lists what appear to be routine police measures for maintaining public order, which included action against the Christians along with the banning of pantomimi and restrictions on the behavior of charioteers (Suet. Ner. 16.2). He also makes a point of saying that in public shows Nero never had anyone put to death, even condemned criminals (Suet. Ner. 12.1). Dio says nothing about the Christians in the Neronian period, even though he does record the widely held view that Nero had caused the fire and describes the bitterness that this belief engendered. Perhaps even more astonishing is the silence of Christian writers. There was a strong tradition that Peter and Paul were martyred during Nero’s reign, and Nero is accordingly depicted as a leading Antichrist. But no Christian writer before Sulpicius Severus, who quotes this passage of Tacitus in the early fifth century, makes reference to any large-scale slaughter following the fire. Tertullian, Lactantius, Jerome (Vir. Ill. 5; Chron.), and Eusebius all refer to Nero generally as a persecutor. The supposed fates of Peter and Paul made this inevitable, and in the history of martyrdoms they would naturally take pride of place. But it is surely astonishing that not a single Christian writer makes any mention of what they would surely have viewed as the first large-scale martyrdom. The case of Eusebius is striking since his Ecclesiastical History is in effect an exhaustive history of martyrdoms in every corner of the empire, some significant but others fairly minor from a historical (not, of course, from an individual) perspective, yet no mention whatsoever is made of the first recorded mass execution of believers. Even Peter and Paul could hardly have totally eclipsed an event of such symbolic importance in the city of Rome itself. That Tacitus’s Annals might not have been known to the Christian writers is perhaps not surprising. The Annals seem to have had little impact on immediately succeeding generations. The like-named third-century emperor Tacitus supposedly imagined that he was descended from the historian and ordered that copies of his works should be made in order to rescue him from the neglect (incuria) of readers (SHA Tacitus 10.3). But Christian tradition also knew nothing of Tacitus’s source, variously identified by modern scholars as Fabius Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus, or Pliny the Elder. The earliest surviving Christian author to mention Nero generally as a persecutor is Melito of Sardis, who, in his Apology directed toward Marcus Aurelius in about AD 161 (preserved by Eusebius [Hist. Eccl. 4.26.9]), claimed that Nero and Domitian made false accusations about the Christian doctrine. Tertullian later identifies Nero as the first persecutor (Apol. 5.3–4; Scorp. 15.3) but says nothing of the fire or of a large-scale massacre and directs his reader to check the historical record, while noting that he consulted the “Lives of the Caesars” (vitas Caesarum legimus).
The First Epistle to the Corinthians by Clement of Rome, a leading member of the first-century “church,” to the extent that we can use that word, is often cited in this context. Written to the Christians in Corinth in connection with a dispute there, the letter is generally considered authentic (the supposed Second Epistle is not now attributed to him). A bishop in the early church at Rome, Clement refers to the deaths of Peter and Paul as occurring dia zelou (“through jealousy”) and relates how, also through jealousy, members of the elect suffered and women were persecuted, “Danaids and Dircai” suffering terrible torments (I Clem. 5.2–6.2). The last has been taken to refer to stage reenactments, with Christians taking the role of mythological figures (Coleman [1990]). But the manuscript text of this passage, especially the reference to Danaids and Dircai, is disputed. Also, we cannot be sure to which reign Clement is ascribing these punishments, nor is it made clear that they were in fact taking place in Rome. Moreover, the punishments described are quite different from those related in the Annals, and there is no hint of a connection with the fire. The persecutions are ascribed to “jealousy,” and if we look at this passage in the context of Clement’s letter as a whole, we see that he has been describing the baneful effect of envy and jealousy on the Jewish community through the ages, which might imply problems of internal divisions or Jewish–Christian tensions.
There are also some internal difficulties with the account of the Christians in the Annals. It is not well integrated into the narrative. Nero’s scheme to deflect blame from himself is introduced, and then the topic is dropped, with no indication of any permanent or long-term effects on the perception of Nero’s guilt or on Nero’s reputation generally. Indeed, the whole section of Chapter 44 from “But neither human resourcefulness …” to “… one man’s cruelty” could be eliminated from the Annals with no loss of sense or continuity. There is also some degree of confusion in the narrative, difficult to explain, even making allowance for Tacitus’s cryptic style. Tacitus makes it clear that Nero made up the accusations against the Christians; his language, “found culprits” (subdidit reos), leaves no doubt that the charges were bogus. Yet, once the investigations were under way, it is implied that some Christians admitted to being arsonists, without any explanation of this apparently illogical turn of events. Most disturbingly, there is also something very curious about the way that Pontius Pilate is introduced into the narrative. He is simply described as “procurator” without reference to the “province” for which he had a degree of responsibility (strictly, Judaea was not a true provincia but part of, and subordinate to, the province of Syria). This is a very curious way to introduce him. Pilate is well known to Christian tradition as the governor of Judaea at the time of the crucifixion, but to the Roman reader of Tacitus’s day he was not known nearly well enough to “need no introduction.” One might seek to explain Pilate’s introduction by an earlier reference to his rather chaotic governorship in one of the earlier lost books of the Annals, but a key role for Pilate there is more or less ruled out by Tacitus’s dismissive comment in the Histories about events in Judaea in Tiberius’s reign with the famous line “under Tiberius all was quiet” (sub Tiberio quies) (Hist. 5.9.2). The very mention of Pilate’s administration as the context for the death of Christ is in itself very surprising; it is a detail about Christ that would not be of great interest to the Romans but would be highly important to a Christian reader. But, most significantly, Pilate is described as holding the office of “procurator.” This term was not used for the equestrian governors of administrative districts like Judaea at the time of the crucifixion; that is, in the reign of Tiberius. It is not in fact found in that sense until later, when it is used by Claudius. Before then, such governors were known as “prefects” (praefecti). We know that Pilate was no exception to this rule, because in a building inscription discovered at Caesarea in Judaea he is explicitly identified as praefectus (AE 1963: 104). Thus, the reference to Pilate, of much more interest to a Christian reader than to a pagan Roman, contains a serious and elementary historical anachronism. But we can in fact cite another example of the very same error. The lingua franca of early Christianity was Greek, and Greek is accordingly the language of the New Testament Gospels. At some point, the Gospels began to be translated into Latin, culminating in Jerome’s Latin Vulgate version of the New Testament at the beginning of the fifth century, in which Jerome corrected the current Latin versions. Augustine (Doct. Christ. 2.16) notes vast numbers of Latin versions of the scriptures, but we are in almost total ignorance about when and where the process of translation first began. There is a general consensus that a Latin version of the New Testament, the Vetus Latina, had been produced by the end of the second century, possibly in Rome or North Africa (Metzger [1977], 286). In these pre-Jerome Latin versions of the New Testament, at Luke 3.1, where in the Greek text Pontius Pilate’s office is described by the neutral Greek word hegemon (“leader”), the Vetus Latina translates the term with the phrase procurante Pontio Pilato (“when Pontius Pilate was acting as procurator”). Thus, the notion that he held the office of procurator was part of the Latin Christian tradition. This strengthens the possibility that at least the sentence “The man who gave them their name, Christus, had been executed during the rule of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilatus” (Tac. Ann. 15.44.2) is a Christian interpolation.
While there was undoubtedly prejudice against the Christians under Nero, as is confirmed by Suetonius, it could hardly be the case that the Christian community in Rome was large enough to have been the object of such intense popular hatred, despite the claims of Lactantius. It has been argued that Nero’s wife Poppaea, whom Josephus (AJ 20.195) describes as god-fearing (theosebes), was pro-Jewish and encouraged persecution of the Christians. But, if so, that aspect of the event was ignored by Tacitus. And when Tacitus speaks of the “large number” who were put to death, that, at the very least, has to be an exaggeration. There is of course the difficulty that, in the early stage of Christianity, the distinction between Christian and Jew was not a clear-cut one for the Romans. Thus, in the previous reign, Suetonius (Claud. 25.4) reports that Claudius expelled Jews from Rome because of the disturbances at the instigation of “Chrestus,” presumably a reference to clashes between Christian and non-Christian Jews. Tacitus’s description of Christianity as a “pernicious superstition” marked by “shameful offenses” and “hatred of mankind” is reminiscent of what he says of the Jews at Hist. 5.5.1: “The customs of the Jews are base and abominable. … [T]oward every other people they feel only hate and enmity.” It has been argued that there is confusion between Christians and zealous Jews who might have been responsible for the fire. But Tacitus, who in his early career had been a quindecemvir, a priestly office that would have involved a fairly high degree of sophistication about religious matters, seems to have no trouble seeing the Christians as a distinct and identifiable sect.
It is no surprise that this chapter of the Annals is one of the most intensely studied passages of classical literature.
SOURCES
To deflect anger over the fire, Nero selects the Christians as scapegoats.
Tac. Ann. 15.44.1. Such were the precautions taken as a result of human reasoning. The next step was to find ways of appeasing the gods, and the Sibylline books were consulted.35 Under their guidance, supplicatory prayers were offered to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina, and there were propitiatory ceremonies performed for Juno by married women, first on the Capitol and then on the closest part of the shoreline.36 (From there, water was drawn, and the temple and statue of the goddess were sprinkled with it.) Women who had husbands also held ritual feasts and all-night festivals.37
But neither human resourcefulness, nor the emperor’s largesse, nor appeasement of the gods could stop belief in the nasty rumor that an order had been given for the fire. To dispel the gossip, Nero therefore found culprits, on whom he inflicted the most exotic punishments.38 These were people hated for their shameful offenses,39 people whom the common people called Christians.40 3. The man who gave them their name, Christus, had been executed during the rule of Tiberius by the procurator Pontius Pilatus. The pernicious superstition had been temporarily suppressed, but it was starting to break out again, not just in Judaea, the starting point of that curse, but in Rome as well, where all that is abominable and shameful in the world flows together and gains popularity.
4. And so, at first, those who confessed were apprehended, and subsequently, on the disclosures they made, a huge number were found guilty—more because of their hatred of mankind than because they were arsonists.41 As they died, they were further subjected to insult. Covered with hides of wild beasts, they perished by being torn to pieces by dogs, or they would be fastened to crosses and, when daylight had gone, set on fire to provide lighting at night. 5. Nero had offered his gardens as a venue for the show, and he would also put on circus entertainments, mixing with the plebs in his charioteer’s outfit or standing up in his chariot. As a result, guilty though these people were and deserving exemplary punishment, pity for them began to well up because it was felt that they were being exterminated not for the public good but to gratify one man’s cruelty.
45. Meanwhile, Italy had been completely devastated to raise Nero’s funds; the provinces had been ruined, and so had the allied peoples and the so-called free communities.
Suetonius speaks generally of the punishment of the Christians by Nero among a number of public order acts.
Suet. Ner. 16.2.2. Under Nero’s rule, many offenses were severely dealt with and checked, and there were many new ordinances. A limit on expenditures was set. Public dinners were reduced to sportulae. It was forbidden for cooked food, with the exception of legumes and vegetables, to be sold in taverns, whereas earlier there was no sort of fare that was not on offer.42 The Christians, devotees of a new and abominable superstition, were subjected to punishment.43 The charioteers, who had assumed the right, long enjoyed with impunity, of wandering about cheating and robbing people for fun, saw their amusements disallowed.44 Fan clubs of pantomimi, along with the actors themselves, were banished from the city.45
Lactantius says nothing of a persecution following the fire.
Lactantius De mort. pers. 2.5–7. When Nero was now emperor, Peter came to Rome and, after performing a number of miracles (which he was able to do thanks to the power conferred on him by the goodness of God himself), he converted many to the righteous religion and founded a faithful and stable temple to the Lord. News of this was brought to Nero, who could see that large numbers, not only in Rome but everywhere, were abandoning the worship of idols and crossing over to the new religion and rejecting the old one. Being a detestable and vicious tyrant, he rushed to destroy the heavenly temple and eradicate the righteous religion, and first of all he persecuted the servants of God, crucifying Peter and murdering Paul.46
Eusebius was born shortly after 260. He became bishop of Caesarea and was favored by the emperor Constantine. He died before 340. He was the author of a number of works in Greek. His Ecclesiastical History (primarily a history of martyrdom) was first written in the early fourth century and went through a number of rewritings.
Eusebius Hist. Eccl. 2.25.1. When Nero’s rule was well established, he steered into unholy practices and girded himself to attack even the religion of the god of all things. To give a written account of what sort of depraved person he became would not be appropriate for the present study. In fact, though, since many have transmitted to us a record of his doings in painstakingly accurate narratives, 2. it is possible for anyone who so wishes to see from them the loutish qualities of the bizarre man’s insanity. Driven on by this, he brought about the destruction of countless men one after the other and then plunged so deeply into impious murder as not to keep his hands off his closest relatives and friends: by various forms of death, he did away with his mother as well as his brothers and wife, along with innumerable others related to him, as if they were personal or public enemies.
3. But in all this there was this one thing missing from his record, namely being the first emperor to be proved an enemy of the divine religion. 4. The Roman Tertullian again makes this observation, in these words: “Check your histories; there you will discover that it was the emperor Nero who first persecuted this creed, especially when he was ruthless toward all in Rome after he brought the whole of the East into subjection.”47 We are proud of having such a man as the originator of our punishment, since anyone knowing him can tell that only something that was a great good would have been condemned by Nero.
5. Having thus proclaimed himself to be in the forefront of those fighting against God, Nero was stimulated to slaughter the apostles. So it is recorded that, under him, Paul was beheaded in Rome itself and that Peter was likewise crucified there, and the report is confirmed by the fact that the names of Peter and Paul have survived to this day in the cemeteries there.48
1 Pliny’s lotoe are generally identified as the Celtis Australis, commonly known as the European nettle tree, which has a sweet, edible fruit and is unconnected to the common nettle.
2 The individual described here is probably Gaius Caecina Largus, who held the consulship with Claudius in AD 42. In the previous section, Pliny has identified the house with the trees as belonging to Lucius Licinius Crassus, consul in 95 BC, and Caecina had presumably acquired it from him. The house, located on the Palatine, had been coveted, especially for the six trees in question, by Crassus’s colleague as censor, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, great-great-great-grandfather of Nero.
3 The trees were presumably damaged by the fire, attributed here to Nero, and then destroyed during Nero’s reconstruction.
4 Fires had been a serious problem throughout Rome’s history. Two as recent as Tiberius’s reign were mentioned earlier by Tacitus (Ann. 4.64.1, 6.45.1). Tacitus stands alone in expressing doubt about Nero’s complicity in the fire of AD 64. Suetonius and Dio report only negative information about Nero, and the references in the Octavia and in Pliny the Elder imply sources that saw Nero as responsible. But the fact that Tacitus opens his narrative with this question suggests that it was a contentious one in his own day. It is to be noted that in Tacitus’s account of the Pisonian conspiracy the tribune Subrius Flavus gives as one of the reasons for his opposition to Nero the claim that the emperor was an arsonist (Tac. Ann. 15.67.1–2; see Chapter VIII). Josephus (AJ 20.151) does not include the fire in his list of Nero’s crimes, but the list is cursory and confined to transgressions against individuals.
5 The saying is anonymous but apparently widely known in antiquity. Dio (58.23.4) puts it in the mouth of Tiberius when contemplating the succession of Caligula.
6 Livy (5.55.2–4) suggests that the chaotic plan of Rome in the time of Augustus resulted from the hasty reconstruction that followed the Gallic destruction. “Heights” would have included the Palatine Hill, as we know from Pliny.
7 It is to be noted that in blaming Nero for the destruction Suetonius says that his contempt for the ugliness of the city was only a pretext (“as if”) presumably covering up the more serious charge that he needed the land for his own palace. Tacitus and Dio do no more than hint that the arsonists could have been acting on Nero’s orders. Suetonius here is much more explicit in asserting that they were his agents.
8 The reference may be to the opening of the Campus Martius and the buildings of Agrippa, as reported by Tacitus (Ann. 15.39.2). While Tacitus speaks of welfare measures taken by Nero, Suetonius sees people left to their own devices.
9 Tacitus describes the fire as beginning in a specific place, and he provides precise topographical details. Dio has the fire beginning in different parts of the city.
10 Dio suggests that the acts of incendiarism were random and without deep motive.
11 Augustus established his home on the Palatine Hill, and it became the preferred location for subsequent emperors (giving words for “palace” in various languages). Maecenas left his Esquiline gardens to Augustus in his will. Nero started to build a fine residence, the Domus Transitoria, in the valley between the Palatine and Esquiline. This would be rebuilt as the Golden House.
12 A number of buildings had been erected by Agrippa in the area: the Saepta, where the tribes voted; the Diribitorium, where the votes were counted; the Thermae; the Porticus Vipsania (built by his sister [Dio 55.8.4]); and the Pantheon.
13 In addition to keeping an open mind about Nero’s responsibility for the fire, Tacitus is more willing than the other sources to give him proper credit for the measures that he undertook for the welfare of the victims.
14 The tower of Maecenas was located in the Esquiline garden given by Maecenas to Augustus (see Tac. Ann. 15.39.1). Dio in the next passage refers more vaguely to the “highest point” of the palace.
15 The major discrepancies in the accounts of Nero’s supposed performance cast serious doubt on the likelihood of their deriving from a reliable source.
16 Suetonius (Ner. 38) says that the fire lasted six days and seven nights. An inscription (CIL 6.826, copied but now lost) gives a period of nine days (urbs per novem dies arsit). It is possible that the second outbreak lasted for three days.
17 The precise location of Tigellinus’s Aemilian estates is uncertain. Tacitus seems to imply that the fire broke out in a new area that had not previously been affected.
18 Suetonius, as noted, provides the name of the putative city: “Neropolis” (Ner. 55).
19 Augustus divided the city of Rome into fourteen districts, identified by numbers, in 7 BC. The description “charred vestiges” is clearly an exaggeration. Even within the areas affected, the Capitol (Tac. Ann. 15.44.1) and the Forum (Tac. Ann. 16.27.1) seem to have suffered little, if any, damage, and there was regular activity in the Circus by at least April of the following year, when games were celebrated there during the Festival of Ceres; the Temple of Ceres was clearly standing (Tac. Ann. 15.53.1; Suet. Ner. 25.2). The Domus Tiberiana on the Palatine survived (Tac. Hist. 1.27.2), the Temple of Apollo was the destination after the triumphant return of Nero from Greece in late 67, and there is reference made, immediately after the fire (Tac. Ann. 15.44.1), to the Sibylline books (discussed later) kept there. The districts that seem to have escaped were Regio XIV Trans Tiberim, Regio I Porta Capena to the southwest of Mons Caelius, VI Alta Semita on the Viminal and Quirinal, and VII Via Lata in the north. Those devastated were XI Circus Maximus, X Palatium, and IV Templum Pacis (=Suburra). Pliny (HN 12.94) speaks of the shrine of Augustus on the Palatine as having been destroyed by fire but does not connect this with the Neronian fire.
20 The Temple of Luna was on the Aventine. Only here is its construction attributed to Servius Tullius, but he is recorded as the founder of the Temple of Diana in the same area (Livy 1.45.2; Dion. Hal. 4.26).
21 The Temple of Jupiter Stator was supposedly dedicated by Romulus after a reverse at the hands of the Sabines (Livy 1.12.6).
22 The Temple of Numa and that of Vesta were located close to one another and are often referred to together (Plut. Num. 14.69; Ov. Tr. 3.1.27).
23 Rome was sacked by the Gauls, specifically the Senones, who had migrated from Gaul into Italy in the fourth century BC, on July 19, 390 BC (Livy 5.41; Dio 62.17.3).
24 The calculation is that between 390 BC and AD 64, 454 years had elapsed; that is, 418 years plus 418 months plus 418 days.
25 Throughout his reign, Nero demonstrated an enthusiasm for building, and a number of his structures predate the fire, such as the grand market (Dio 61.18.3) that he erected near the Temple of Claudius on the Caelian Hill (Chapter III) or the great baths complex erected in the Campus Martius. Also, before the fire, Nero had sought to combine the imperial palace on the Palatine Hill and the Gardens of Maecenas on the Esquiline with the Domus Transitoria (“The Passage House”).
26 The Golden House was an extravagant residence located in what was in effect a royal park, set around an artificial lake, the whole complex covering perhaps some 125 acres (50 hectares). The “Golden” element in the name is of uncertain origin; it may refer to the gilding of the building or, more abstractly, to its heralding a new “golden age.” It might alternatively allude to the imagery of Nero, identified as the sun. The palace extended from the Palatine to the Caelian Hill, where it incorporated the platform of the projected Temple of Claudius, converting the eastern flank of that platform to a fountain (nymphaeum), supplied by a feeder from the Aqua Claudia aqueduct. To the north, it incorporated the Gardens of Maecenas on the Esquiline. The main entrance was from the Forum through a colonnaded vestibule, where a colossal bronze image of Nero was erected. The complex was unfinished at Nero’s death, and the structures were largely demolished. The Temple of Claudius was eventually built, and the artificial lake became the site of the “Colosseum” (properly the Amphitheatrum Flavium). The giant bronze statue (whose base has been archaeologically excavated) was refurbished to represent Sol (“Sun”). With the help of a team of twenty-four elephants, it was moved to a new location during Hadrian’s reign. The best surviving evidence for the house is the dining complex built on the Oppian, the southwest spur of the Esquiline, not mentioned in any literary source. It consisted of a long, colonnaded structure, on at least two levels, with symmetrical five-sided courts at both sides of a magnificent domed octagonal dining hall. One hundred forty-two rooms have been identified. Two of the rooms by the octagonal hall provide some of the very earliest examples of cross vaults in Roman architecture. The remains underlie the substructures of the later baths of Trajan.
27 Pliny (HN 34.45–47) informs us that the statue was created by the sculptor Zenodorus, who specialized in large-scale commissions. Pliny himself saw a model of it and noted its resemblance to the emperor.
28 This remarkable structure was presumably part of the complex underlying the baths of Trajan just noted. Suetonius’s description is somewhat ambiguous, since it is not made clear whether the whole room or only the dome above it rotated.
29 These two individuals are otherwise unknown.
30 Agrippa in 37 BC had linked the Bay of Naples to Lake Avernus to provide safe anchorage for his fleet. The construction of a canal linking it to Rome would have been a gigantic undertaking. Suetonius (Ner. 31.3) also refers to its construction, observing that it would have been 160 Roman miles in length (about 147 statute miles), wide enough to allow large ships (quinqueremes) to pass one another. It was to be constructed using gangs of convicted criminals.
31 Suetonius (Ner. 31.3) speaks of Nero beginning the construction of an extended pool from Misenum to Avernus, which was to be roofed over and lined by colonnades, and of the canal to link Avernus with Ostia.
32 Augustus had attempted to impose limits on the height of buildings, apparently without much success. Nero’s limit seems to have exceeded sixty feet, since Trajan later reduced the height to that amount (Aur. Vict. Epit. 13.13). Nero’s regulations may have been no more successful, since Juvenal (3.269) alludes to the excessive building heights in his day.
33 Suetonius (Ner. 16.1) also notes the porticos and adds that the fires could be fought from their flat roofs.
34 The scheme seems not to have proceeded speedily. Suetonius (Vesp. 8.5) refers to the fact that much of the city still had not been rebuilt when Vespasian returned there in 70 and allowed the vacant sites to be confiscated and built on.
35 According to tradition, the Sibylline books, oracles written in Greek verse, had been brought to Rome in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus. A board of fifteen was responsible for their interpretation. The original collection was destroyed in a fire in 83 BC, and a new official collection was undertaken by Augustus. From 12 BC, the texts were deposited in the library located in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine, and they seem to have avoided destruction by the fire.
36 The choice of Vulcan, god of fire, is to be expected. The roles of the goddesses are less evident, though not surprising, and variously explained. The Temple of Ceres and Proserpina was by the Circus Maximus, where the fire first broke out.
37 Ritual feasts (sellisternia) involved the propitiation of the goddesses at formal banquets set before their images. The goddesses were seated. In the equivalent ceremonies involving male gods, the figures reclined (lectisternia).
38 Unfortunately, Tacitus gives no indication of the time that had supposedly elapsed between the fire and the punishment of the Christians. Nor is it clear which authority the Christians were brought before. A number of candidates have been suggested, the most likely being the prefect of the city, whose office was reinvigorated by Augustus and whose holder initially exercised summary justice in dealing with minor criminal cases and through time assumed responsibility for more serious cases. Another possibility would be the praefectus vigilum, the officer in charge of the imperial fire service, who could deal with cases of arson. Ofonius Tigellinus, Nero’s sinister praetorian prefect, has also been suggested. There is also much controversy over whether there was legislation making Christianity itself a crime in this period.
39 “Shameful offenses” may refer to claims of cannibalism and infanticide, familiar in writers of the second century AD. This passage may suggest that as early as the Neronian period there was a belief that such practices were common among Christians. It has been argued that Tacitus may have heard accounts of the Christians from his friend Pliny, who famously investigated them under Trajan.
40 The original reading of Tacitus’s manuscript was Chrestiani, which was corrected to Christiani by the erasure of the “e” and the addition of “i.” Whether this was by the same or a later hand in the manuscript is disputed; it is also argued that the change was by the same hand and later modified by a later hand, perhaps because of the Christus in the next sentence (Woodman [2004], 325, n.53). Chrestiani may possibly be the form by which early Christians were commonly known by the Romans, perhaps through confusion with the Greek word chrestos, “worthy” or “good.” Suetonius (Claud. 25.4) refers to “Chrestos.” Tertullian (Apol. 3.5; Ad nat. 1.3.9) and Lactantius (Div. inst. 4.7.5) refer to mispronunciation of the word.
41 This passage has been much discussed by modern scholars. Tacitus seems to say that, through the information provided by those who confessed, others were arrested, and this happened more because of who they were than because they were arsonists. This strongly implies that the first group, unlike the second, did confess to arson, although some scholars argue that they confessed to being Christians. The issue is further confused by the difficulty that convicti (“were found guilty”), the generally accepted reading, is in fact an emendation of the reading coniuncti (“were associated with them”), found in the single Medicean II manuscript from which all the other extant copies of the latter books of the Annals are derived. It may well be that the fire started by accident but that some Christians believed that it was the fire expected to mark the second coming (promised in the Book of Revelation, written later, of course), and they might accordingly have felt the impulse to help it along. They might then possibly be identified with those unknown individuals who were adding to the flames (see Suet. Ner. 38.1; Tac. Ann. 15.38.7; Dio 61.17.1).
42 No other source speaks of sumptuary restrictions under Nero. In looking to his client’s welfare, the patron was expected to provide food, originally in a small basket (sportula), though later this was sometimes replaced by a cash donation (Juv. Sat. 1.95–96; Mart. passim). There was a fear that cookshops could become the focus of disorders. Suetonius (Claud. 38.2) records an identical law under Claudius (which Claudius had relaxed) and claims that under Tiberius even pastries were banished (Tib. 34.1).
43 Suetonius’s prejudice against Christianity as a dangerous superstition is echoed in Tacitus. But Suetonius silently passes over their horrific suffering as described by Tacitus, which includes the kind of detail that normally had great appeal for the biographer.
44 We have no other information on the restrictions on charioteers.
45 Pantomimi performed through dance and gesture, without spoken parts, and usually performed scenes from tragedy, while mimes generally performed scenes from low life, with much recourse to buffoonery. Tacitus tends to use the two terms interchangeably.
Tacitus (Ann. 13.25.4) reports that the pantomimi were banished from Italy in AD 56 after disturbances among their supporters in the theater (which Tacitus attributes largely to measures undertaken by Nero himself); they had been allowed back by 60 (Tac. Ann. 14.21.4).
46 Lactantius sees the focus of the Neronian persecution as the martyrdom of Saints Peter and Paul, with no mention of the fire. The martyrdom of these two saints is a primary tenet of Christianity. The earliest explicit statement that they died in Italy comes from the late second century, in a letter of Dionysius of Corinth quoted by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 2.25.8). Dionysius, whose floruit is given by Eusebius as AD 171, claimed that they were both martyred in Rome at the same time. Furthermore, Gaius, a Roman priest who was active during the term of Pope (St.) Zephyrinus (199–217), is similarly quoted by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. 2.25.6–7), claiming that he could point out the “trophies” (tropaia, presumably the sepulchers or shrines) of the Apostles who founded the church (in the case of Peter) at the Vatican or (in the case of Paul) on the Ostian Way. They are clearly well-established landmarks. The chronologies of the final years of Peter and Paul are much debated by scholars, but for our purposes precision is not necessary. It is clear that by the end of the second century, a tradition of their martyrdom had become firmly established in the Christian church, and this earned Nero the reputation of Antichrist, and he seems to have been given a pass for the atrocities that followed the fire. The death of Paul, whose final years are better documented, is generally placed in AD 58–60, hence before the fire.
47 Tert. Apol. 5.3. Tertullian’s text has been mistranslated from Latin into Eusebius’s Greek here. He actually said, “There you will discover that it was Nero who first persecuted with the imperial sword this creed which was especially arising in Rome.” Tertullian certainly knew of Tacitus, since in this work (the Apology) he refers to his name in a wordplay as “the most loquacious of liars” (“Tacitus” means “silent”). Presumably, Tertullian was familiar with Tacitus’s Histories or the minor works, rather than the Annals.
48 Eusebius speaks of the persecution of the Christians in general terms, as does Tertullian, with no reference to the fire or to the horrific punishments meted out in Tacitus’s narrative. The only specific references Eusebius makes are to the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul.