VIII

CONSPIRACIES

INTRODUCTION

By its very nature, the background to any conspiracy in the past is something that was meant to be kept secret, and as a consequence it poses particular challenges for the historian. When we add the general difficulty of properly understanding events of distant antiquity, we must face the inevitability that disentangling the truth about conspiracies in Julio-Claudian Rome is a nearly impossible task. There is a certain irony in the case of the conspiracy that erupted in April 65, the Pisonian conspiracy, named after the man who emerged as its figurehead. This incident receives the most detailed treatment of any in the extant writings of Tacitus, occupying twenty-six chapters of the Annals, organized as a coherent unit displaying some of Tacitus’s best narrative writing. Indeed, Woodman (1993) has pointed out its resemblance to a dramatic presentation in both language and structure. Tacitus’s account is supplemented by evidence from Dio and a brief notice in Suetonius. And the conspiracy provides a relatively rare instance where an ancient historian reveals his source, in this case two of them, since Tacitus specifically cites Fabius Rusticus and the elder Pliny, both of whom were contemporaries of the events. Less explicitly, he cites those who were exiled as a result of the conspiracy and who reported on it when they returned. Yet the whole episode remains frustratingly obscure.

From what we can glean from Tacitus, it seems at first sight that this was a conspiracy that should have succeeded, in the way that the conspiracy against Caligula succeeded in AD 41. It did, admittedly, like its predecessor, lack the backing of a powerful army commander from a province that hosted substantial legionary forces, but, again like its predecessor, it attracted elements inside the praetorian guard. In fact, one of the guards’ two prefects and no fewer than seven of the twelve tribunes who would have commanded the twelve cohorts of the guard were either involved or suspected of involvement, and only two tribunes, Veianus (Tac. Ann. 15.67.4) and Gerellanus (Tac. Ann. 15.69.1), are depicted as totally loyal adherents of Nero.

There do seem, however, to have been differences between the two conspiracies. On the positive side, the Pisonian plot was, for all its chaos and incoherence, a more realistic conspiracy than the one that toppled Caligula. There was no impractical idealism, no ambition to replace a corrupt imperial system with a revitalized republic. The closest one gets to that is the senator Plautius Lateranus, who was supposedly patriotic and motivated by a love of the res publica, but this must not be confused with the republican form of government, and no desire to turn back the clock is ascribed to him by any of the sources. Lateranus, like the others, was prepared to replace one emperor with another more acceptable one (in fact, Piso, the candidate chosen to replace Nero, was in many respects oddly reminiscent of the emperor). But in order for a conspiracy to succeed, it needs organized, disciplined, and focused leadership. Behind the assassination of Caligula, we can suspect the hand of the powerful freedman Callistus, and perhaps even of Claudius himself. Behind the attempted coup to which Piso’s name has been attached, there was no strong driving force; certainly none was provided by Piso himself. As a crew, the conspirators were distinctly motley, embracing praetorians, senators, equestrians, and even a freedwoman. Security was lax in the extreme, with a casual regard for concealing the preparations and for limiting the number of people in the know. The freedwoman Epicharis, although rightly admired for her outstanding courage, was woefully irresponsible and shockingly indiscreet in trying to recruit a friend who was not to be trusted. The plot was exposed on its intended eve when the senator Scaevinus behaved very injudiciously and aroused the suspicions of his freedman.

Tacitus states that the plot did not originate with Gaius Calpurnius Piso, but he does not explain with whom it did originate. Dio does not even mention Piso’s role in it. Apart from what we can glean from the Annals, our knowledge of Piso is derived mainly from a panegyric in 261 hexameters, the Laus Pisonis. The author of this tract, who describes himself as a youth under twenty, is unknown, as is the date of the poem. Recent suggestions range from AD 39/40 (Champlin [1989]) to late in Nero’s reign (Green [2010]), but there is a general consensus that the recipient is the Piso of the conspiracy. Tall, handsome, and generous, he is cited by Martial (12.36.8–9) as an example of a generous patron. Affable, eloquent, and cultured, he seems superficially to have had all the right qualities, but he lacked firmness of character and had little capacity for practical affairs. This impression given by Tacitus is echoed by the Laus Pisonis, which refers to his skill at ball and board games (185, 190), and the fact that he writes light verse and plays the lyre (163–77). He also had a liking for luxury, and his properties included a villa at Baiae. When sent into exile by Caligula, he was given ten slaves but asked for more (they were granted) (Dio 59.8.8).

Piso belonged to a family that was still powerful and distinguished, and he does not seem to have suffered from the notoriety of his earlier kinsman Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, who committed suicide in AD 20 for his supposed role in Germanicus’s murder. Another kinsman, though the connection is unclear, would have been Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus, who was adopted by Galba and executed shortly afterward (Tac. Hist. 4.48.1). Piso’s precise relationship to the other members of the family is uncertain. It is just possible that he was the son of Lucius Calpurnius Piso “Augur” (consul 1 BC) or Lucius Cornelius Piso “Pontifex” (consul 15 BC), but we are told that he acquired his wealth through a maternal inheritance (Scholiast on Juvenal 5.114). The apparent absence of a specific strong family connection might normally be a major obstacle to a leading role in a conspiracy, and it is quite possible that Tacitus more clearly explained Piso’s qualifications in the chapters now missing from Caligula’s reign.

At some point in 37, Caligula married Piso’s wife, Livia Orestilla (or Cornelia Orestina; the name is uncertain). Suetonius reports Caligula’s quip that he acquired his wife in the manner of Augustus and Romulus, referring to the fact that they had both snatched their brides from their original husbands (Livia was previously married to Tiberius Claudius, and Hersilia was married to a Hersilius before she married Romulus) (Suet. Cal. 25.1; Dio 59.8.7). Piso’s co-option into the Arval brotherhood in place of Caligula’s father-in-law, Silanus, on May 24, 38, may have been a reward for his compliance in giving up his wife. Caligula seems to have tired of his new bride very quickly and soon divorced her—after a few days, according to Suetonius, who adds that he later banished her on the grounds that she took up with Piso again within two years of the marriage. Dio (59.8.7) claims that Piso was included in the exile. The Scholiast on Juvenal 5.114 notes that he was recalled by Claudius and also mentions his consulship (date unknown). He may have held governorships, but he certainly had no major military command, and he seems to have had no major role in civil matters either.

Tacitus has serious reservations about his character and seems to have believed that his apparent public virtues were something of a façade. In the narrative of the conspiracy, he devotes relatively little space to him, focusing in fact more on people who may not even have been part of the plot, such as Seneca or the consul Marcus Julius Vestinus. If the reservations of Tacitus are well founded, Piso seems to have been far from the ideal candidate to be the figurehead of a conspiracy. To many, he must have seemed too much of a clone of the man he was replacing, with his affability, his penchant for the theater, and even his penchant for the wives of friends. He was certainly no leader of men. He refused to allow the coup to happen at his villa at Baiae, in part because it would look as though he had violated the laws of hospitality, and the plot was finally wrecked by his dithering when he lost his nerve and felt unable to make a direct response to the praetorians and to the people. Some of the collaborators seem to have entertained serious reservations about him. Piso himself felt that he had a rival in Lucius Silanus, the last living member of Augustus’s line. Vestinus was believed to have Republican sympathies and might have thrown his support behind a different claimant, so he was not informed of the plot. There were rumors that Subrius, a tribune of the guard, despised Piso as much as he did Nero, because Piso had performed as a tragic actor on the stage, and because he planned to eliminate Piso after the assassination and replace him with Seneca. Given that the senatorial conspirators and the praetorian officers gave their support to a man whose moral qualities were so questionable and about whom some of them had such serious reservations, it is perhaps not surprising that the conspiracy very quickly crumbled.

The absence of a strong central motive, beyond antipathy toward Nero, and the absence of a forceful, widely accepted, leader, were clearly obstacles to the conspiracy’s success. It also cannot have been helped by the dubious morality of some of the participants, along with their questionable motivations. Afranius Quintianus had been insulted in a lampoon. The praetorian prefect Faenius Rufus was afraid that his colleague Tigellinus was gaining more influence than himself. The poet Lucan resented the fact that Nero was suppressing his verses because of artistic jealousy. Only Plautius Lateranus and the freedwoman Epicharis seem to have been motivated by any sense of ideal, although Tacitus’s claim that Epicharis was concerned not only about Nero’s crimes but also about the reduced constitutional role played by the Senate does not sound convincing. There was so little substance to the plot that, according to Tacitus, there was a widespread belief that there had been no conspiracy, that the whole affair was merely a fabrication of Nero to get back at men he feared or envied (a possibility that probably should not be dismissed out of hand). Many of the participants displayed arrant cowardice. Scaevinus and an associate were arrested. They then revealed the names of their partners, which had a snowballing effect. Scaevinus, for instance, denounced Claudius Senecio and Lucan; Senecio then betrayed his friend Annius Pollio; and Lucan implicated his own mother. As the conspiracy collapsed, Faenius Rufus, who was not at first exposed, tried to save his own skin by making a point of interrogating others ruthlessly; then he in turn was denounced by his fellow conspirators. Tacitus is scathing about two of the senatorial conspirators: Scaevinus’s “mental powers had been weakened by his excesses,” and Quintianus “was notorious for his effeminacy” (Tac. Ann. 15.49.3–4).

As a consequence of the exposure of the conspiracy, nineteen individuals were put to death or committed suicide and thirteen were exiled. The most famous of the victims was Seneca. While Agrippina was alive, Nero had been happy to have Seneca and Burrus as powerful allies. With her death, he felt very much more his own man. Upon the death of Burrus in AD 62, Seneca found himself isolated, and his enemies exploited that isolation, criticizing his enormous wealth and provoking Nero’s jealousy by pointing out that Seneca’s estates were finer than the emperor’s. They also suggested that he was trying to garner personal popularity, and most gallingly they harped on his successes in oratory and reputation as a poet, the latter role only pursued to try to outdo Nero, an issue that would have been particularly sensitive to the emperor. With some justification, they pointed out his disapproval of Nero’s passions: of his love of chariot racing and of his desire to sing before an audience. They would have found a receptive audience when they urged Nero to be his own man and to cut himself off from his old teacher. Seneca was politically shrewd and realized that he could do little to change things, and he sought to withdraw into private life. He offered to hand over his estates to the emperor and to devote himself to intellectual pursuits. Although Tacitus suggests that by this time Nero’s feelings had reached the level of contempt, he cloaked this under a veil of flattery and made a great pretense of still needing Seneca, and no doubt he did in a sense, possibly feeling that his association with the famous philosopher and man of letters added a veneer of respectability to his reign. Although Seneca did not then gain his sought-after retirement, he did withdraw somewhat, avoided large groups, and stayed outside the city as much as possible, citing ill health or intellectual activities (Tac. Ann. 14.52–56).

Following the Fire of Rome in AD 64 and the ill will aroused by Nero’s subsequent measures, Seneca asked to be allowed to retire to the country, and when his request was refused, he feigned a muscular illness and did not leave his bedchamber, living on wild fruits and spring water. This led to rumors that Nero had tried unsuccessfully to have him poisoned through his own freedman Cleonicus (Tac. Ann. 15.45.3). He lost his life as a consequence of this conspiracy, but it is by no means clear what he knew of it.

Nero also expected the consul Vestinus to be implicated, but this did not happen. He was ordered to commit suicide in any case. The indirect consequences were even more bloody, and a number of prominent Romans died through judicial murder in the course of the following year, AD 66, including Petronius, Nero’s famous “arbiter of good taste” (arbiter elegantiae), and the distinguished philosophers Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. Yet it should also be borne in mind that, for all the distinction of his opponents, Nero could also count on the support of prominent Romans, which included a future emperor, Nerva, and a senator and epic poet, Silius Italicus (Plin. Ep. 3.7).

The origins of the conspiracy are traceable to events three years earlier.

Tac. Ann. 14.65.1. That same year, Nero was believed to have murdered by poison two of his most powerful freedmen1—Doryphorus for his opposition to the marriage to Poppaea,² and Pallas for living too long in possession of immense riches.³ 2. Romanus⁴ had laid secret charges against Seneca of collaboration with Gaius Piso but was himself more effectively brought down on the same grounds by Seneca. From that arose fear on Piso’s part, and against Nero there arose a conspiracy that was momentous and illstarred.⁵

The conspiracy gains widespread support.

Tac. Ann. 15.48.1. Silius Nerva and Atticus Vestinus then entered their consulship,6 at a time when a conspiracy had begun and immediately escalated. Senators, knights, soldiers, and even women raced to enroll in it, from hatred of Nero and also because of the popularity of Gaius Piso. 2. Piso was of the Calpurnian line and was well connected with many distinguished families, because of his father’s noble breeding. And he enjoyed a brilliant reputation among the lower orders thanks to his virtue, or qualities that looked like virtues. 3. For he used his oratorical ability to defend his fellow citizens, showed generosity toward his friends, and was affable in his conversation and interaction, even with strangers. He also enjoyed the fortuitous advantages of a tall physique and handsome looks. But he was far from possessing depth of character or moderation in his pleasures; he immersed himself in frivolity, luxury, and, sometimes, dissipation. And this had the blessing of most people, who, surrounded by such sweet vices, do not want to see austerity or great strictness in the supreme power.

Dio 62.24.1. However, Seneca, the prefect Rufus, and a number of other distinguished men hatched a plot against Nero, since they were unable to tolerate any longer his shameful conduct, his prurient ways, and his brutality.⁷

The conspirators have a wide range of motivations.

Tac. Ann.15.49.1. The conspiracy did not start from ambition on Piso’s part, but I would not find it easy to say who the prime mover was or who provided the inspiration for a coup that so many espoused. 2. Its most fervent supporters proved to be Subrius Flavus, tribune of a praetorian cohort, and the centurion Sulpicius Asper, as the resolution they showed in their deaths demonstrated.8 3. Annaeus Lucanus⁹ and Plautius Lateranus¹⁰ brought to it impassioned hatred. Lucanus had personal motives for anger: Nero, fatuously thinking himself his [Lucanus’s] rival, was trying to suppress the fame of his poems and had forbidden him from giving them public exposure. In the case of Lateranus, a consul designate, it was no personal slight but rather patriotism that brought him into the plot. 4. Flavius Scaevinus and Afranius Quintianus, both of senatorial rank, belied their reputations in embracing such a bold enterprise from the start.¹¹ Scaevinus’s mental powers had been weakened by his excesses, and he therefore led a life of languid indolence, while Quintianus was notorious for his effeminacy, and having been insulted by Nero in a scurrilous poem, he was now set on revenge for the humiliation.

50.1. These men were therefore dropping hints among themselves or their friends about the emperor’s crimes, saying that his reign was coming to an end and that a man must be chosen to succor the ailing state; and they brought into their circle the Roman knights Claudius Senecio, Cervarius Proculus, Vulcacius Araricus, Julius Augurinus, Munatius Gratus, Antonius Natalis, and Marcius Festus.12 2. Senecio had been particularly close to Nero and, since even at that time he kept up a façade of friendship, he was confronted with a multitude of dangers. Natalis was acquainted with all of Piso’s secrets. For the others, fulfillment of their aspirations was being sought via revolution.

3. Military assistance was also enlisted—in addition to Subrius and Sulpicius, whom I mentioned earlier—from Gavius Silvanus¹³ and Statius Proxumus, tribunes of the praetorian cohorts, and from the centurions Maximus Scaurus and Venetus Paulus.

However, their chief strength appeared to reside in the prefect Faenius Rufus.¹⁴ His lifestyle and reputation won him general approval, but Tigellinus surpassed him in the emperor’s estimation because of his barbarity and immorality.¹⁵ Tigellinus kept hounding the man with accusations and had often frightened him by portraying him as a lover of Agrippina, bent on revenge for losing her. 4. Eventually, the conspirators were convinced, by the frequent comments he himself made, that the prefect of the praetorian guard had joined their side, and they began to discuss more readily the timing and location of the assassination. It was said that Subrius Flavus felt an urge to make the attack on Nero as he sang onstage or as he scurried here and there at night without an escort. In the latter scenario, it was Nero’s isolation that had stimulated his enthusiasm, and in the other the very presence of a crowd—a fine witness to a great exploit. But a wish to avoid punishment, always an impediment to great endeavors, held him back.

The plot is compromised through the carelessness of a freedwoman, Epicharis.

Tac. Ann. 15.51.1. Meanwhile, a certain Epicharis had gained information about the plot—how is unclear, as she had previously had no interest in honorable causes—and as the conspirators vacillated and were deferring their hopes, and their fears, she began to incite and criticize them.16 She finally grew tired of their inertia and, as she was spending some time in Campania, she attempted to weaken the loyalty of the officers of the fleet at Misenum and to enlist them as co-conspirators by taking the following steps.

2. Volusius Proculus was one of the captains in the fleet there. He had been one of Nero’s henchmen in his mother’s murder¹⁷ but, to his way of thinking, had not received the advancement that such an important crime merited. Proculus may have been known to Epicharis for some time, or possibly the acquaintance had been recently made, but he revealed to her his services to Nero and how they had turned out to be of no benefit to him. He added further complaints and said that he would take his revenge if the opportunity arose, thus giving Epicharis hope that he could be pushed into action and win more supporters. In the fleet, too, she thought, they would have no small help, and many opportunities, because Nero enjoyed outings on the sea in the area around Puteoli and Misenum.

3. So Epicharis went further, listing all the emperor’s crimes and saying that nothing remained sacred anymore. But, she added, measures had been put in place whereby Nero could be punished for bringing down the state. Proculus need only prepare himself to do his part and bring to their cause his bravest men, for which he could expect appropriate rewards. The names of the conspirators, however, Epicharis withheld. 4. Thus, although Proculus reported to Nero what he had been told, his denunciation was worthless, for when Epicharis was called in and confronted with her informer, she easily confuted him since he had no witnesses to support him. But she was herself detained in custody, since Nero suspected that what was not demonstrably true was not necessarily false.

The mistake of Epicharis alarms the conspirators but does not galvanize them into immediate action. The conspirators agree on the details of the attack.

Tac. Ann. 15.52.1. Prompted by fear of betrayal, however, the conspirators decided to advance the assassination, which would now take place in Piso’s villa at Baiae—Nero was taken with its charming ambience and often went there, enjoying baths and dinners, and dispensing with guards and the weighty trappings of his position.18 Piso, however, objected, putting forward as an excuse the antipathy they would face if the sanctity of the table, and the gods of hospitality, were stained with an emperor’s blood, whatever the man’s qualities. It would be better for them to carry out in the city—in that detested abode built through the pillaging of Roman citizens or else in a public area—the deed they had undertaken for the good of the state.¹⁹

2. This was for general consumption, but Piso secretly harbored fears about Lucius Silanus. Silanus had an outstanding pedigree and had been elevated to every distinction as a result of his training under Gaius Cassius, in whose home he had been brought up, and Piso therefore feared he might seize power. And those who had no connection with the conspiracy, and would feel sorry for Nero as the victim of a criminal assassination, would be ready to hand it to him. 3. Several people also thought that this was Piso’s way of avoiding the problem of the highly intelligent consul Vestinus, who might rise up in the cause of liberty or who, choosing another as emperor, might make the state his own personal gift to that individual, for Vestinus had no part in the conspiracy, though it was on such a charge that Nero later sated his old hatred of an innocent man.

53.1. They finally decided to carry out their plan on that day of the circus games that is consecrated to Ceres.20 Nero rarely went out, and kept himself shut up in his home and gardens,²¹ but he did regularly attend the entertainments in the circus, where access to him was easier in the merry atmosphere of the show. 2. They had established a program for the plot. Lateranus would fall as a suppliant before the emperor’s knees, pretending to be begging him for financial assistance. Surprising him, he would knock him over and, being a man with a strong will and large physique, keep him pinned down.²² At that point, with Nero helpless on the ground, the tribunes and centurions, and any others who had the courage, would run up and butcher him. (Scaevinus insisted on the leading role for himself; he had taken down a dagger in the temple of Salus—or, according to others, of Fortuna—in the town of Ferentinum, and was carrying it about as though it were consecrated to some great exploit.)²³ 3. Meanwhile, Piso was to wait at the Temple of Ceres.²⁴ The prefect Faenius and the others would summon him from there and carry him into the camp, and Claudius Caesar’s daughter Antonia would be with them,25 according to the account of Gaius Plinius,²⁶ in order to win over the support of the mob. 4. I did not consider suppressing this version, whatever its value, although it does seem odd that Antonia should have lent her name to, and taken the risk for, such a forlorn hope. Odd, too, that Piso, whose love for his wife was well known, should have committed himself to another marriage—unless ambition for power burns hotter than all other feelings.²⁷

Suet. Ner. 35.4. There was, in fact, no sort of family tie that he did not criminally destroy. When Claudius’s daughter Antonia refused to marry him after Poppaea’s death, he executed her, allegedly for fomenting revolution, and his treatment of all connected with him by any blood relationship or marriage was similar.

Carelessness of Flavius Scaevinus betrays the plot, and he and his colleague Antonius Natalis break down under interrogation.

Tac. Ann. 15.54.1. What is amazing is that it was all kept veiled in secrecy amid people of different families, classes, ages, and sex, and among rich and poor alike—until, that is, betrayal proceeded from the house of Scaevinus.²⁸ The day before the coup,29 Scaevinus had a long conversation with Antonius Natalis. After that, he returned home, sealed his will, and took the dagger I mentioned earlier from its sheath. Complaining that it had become blunt over time, he gave orders for it to be whetted with a stone until its point was gleaming, and this task he confided to his freedman Milichus. 2. At the same time, he took a more sumptuous dinner than usual and bestowed gifts on his slaves—freedom for his favorites, and money for others. And Scaevinus himself was downcast and clearly deep in thought, though he did make some rambling conversation to feign cheerfulness. 3. Finally, he ordered dressings for wounds and articles for arresting bleeding to be prepared, and he again put this in Milichus’s charge. Either Milichus was privy to the conspiracy and remained loyal to this point or he knew nothing and now became suspicious for the first time, which is what most sources have reported.

4. On what happened next, there is agreement. When the man’s servile mind thought over the rewards of treachery, and at the same time the unlimited money and power danced before his eyes, then moral obligation, the safety of his patron, and the memory of the freedom he had been given all faded away. And, in fact, he had also accepted the advice of his wife—womanly advice and quite despicable,³⁰ for she worked on him with a further motive, fear, noting that numerous freedmen and slaves had been present and seen the same things as he. The silence of one man would do no good, she told him, but the rewards would come to just one man—the one who turned informer first.

55.1. So, at daybreak,³¹ Milichus set off for the Gardens of Servilius.³² As he was being turned away from the door, he kept repeating that he brought important and dreadful news, and he was then escorted by the doorkeepers to Nero’s freedman Epaphroditus, and by Epaphroditus to Nero.³³ He then told Nero of the imminent danger, the formidable conspirators he faced, and everything else that he had heard or surmised. He also displayed the weapon that had been made ready for Nero’s murder and insisted that the culprit be brought in.

2. Arrested by some soldiers, Scaevinus opened his defense with the retort that the weapon that he took to be the basis of the charge was a venerated family heirloom. He kept it in his bedchamber, he said, and it had been removed by his treacherous freedman. On numerous occasions, he had signed the tablets of his will, he added, without taking note of the dates. He had also previously made gifts of money or emancipation to his slaves34 but had done so more generously at this time because, with his financial situation now weak and his creditors pressing, he had little confidence in his will. 3. Moreover, he had always put on ample dinners while he could enjoy his agreeable lifestyle, one not meeting the approval of moralizing critics. No dressings for wounds had been prepared on his orders, he said. It was because the other accusations were patently groundless that the freedman had added this one, for which he could be both informer and witness!

4. Scaevinus backed up his statements with complete self-possession. He actually went on the offensive, calling the man a detestable scoundrel, and with such confidence in his voice and expression that the informer’s case began to fall apart. It would have done so, in fact, but for Milichus’s wife reminding him of Antonius Natalis’s long private conversations with Scaevinus and the fact that both were close associates of Piso.³⁵

56.1. Natalis was therefore called in, and the two men were interrogated separately on the nature and subject of their conversation. Then, because their answers did not match, suspicion arose and they were put in irons. And at the sight and threat of torture, they could hold out no longer.³⁶ 2. The first to break was Natalis, who had a fuller knowledge of the conspiracy as a whole and more skill as a denouncer. He first confessed with regard to Piso and then added Annaeus Seneca, either because Seneca was actually the go-between for him and Piso or because Natalis wanted to ingratiate himself with Nero (who, hating Seneca, was seeking any means to bring him down).37 3. Then, after learning of Natalis’s disclosure, Scaevinus also showed the same weakness—or perhaps he thought that all had now been revealed and silence would do no good—and gave away the others. Of these, Lucanus, Quintianus, and Senecio long denied their guilt.³⁸ Later, tempted by the promise of impunity, and as a way of gaining leniency for their slowness, they named names—Lucanus naming his own mother, Aelia,³⁹ and Quintianus and Senecio each their best friends, Glitius Gallus⁴⁰ and Annius Pollio, respectively.⁴¹

Epicharis is now subjected to vicious torture.

Tac. Ann. 15.57.1. Now, in the meantime, Nero remembered that Epicharis was being detained on information laid by Volusius Proculus and, believing that a woman’s constitution could not cope with pain, he had her subjected to body-rending torture. But no lashing, no burning, and no furious treatment from her torturers—who piled on the pressure so as not to be bested by a woman—could break her denial of the charges. Thus, the first day of the inquisition was a failure. 2. On the next, she was being brought back by means of a chair (her limbs were now dislocated, and she could not stand) to face the same torments when she took the band from her breast, attached it to the chair’s canopy in the form of a noose, put her neck into it, and, throwing the weight of her body into the effort, choked out what little life she had left. Thus, a freedwoman set all the more brilliant an example in such dire circumstances, protecting people unrelated, indeed almost strangers, to her—and that when male free persons, who were Roman knights and senators, were all betraying their nearest and dearest, without being subjected to torture.

Dio 62.27.3. Noteworthy, too, was a certain woman called Epicharis.42 She had taken part in the conspiracy, and all its planning had been confided in her, but she gave absolutely nothing away despite being tortured time and again by the dreadful Tigellinus.

More participants are rounded up.

Tac. Ann. 15.58.1. For Lucanus, too, and Senecio and Quintianus, did not fail to tell on their accomplices, one after the other,⁴³ while Nero grew more and more frightened, despite having redoubled the guards with which he surrounded himself.

2. In fact, Nero virtually put the city under arrest, keeping the walls manned with military units, and the sea and river under close surveillance.⁴⁴ There were also foot and horse soldiers—with Germans in their ranks, trusted by the emperor as being foreigners—tearing about the forums and private houses, and even through the countryside and closest municipalities.⁴⁵ 3. And so neverending columns of manacled prisoners were being dragged out and left waiting near the gates of the gardens. Then, when they went in to plead their case, it was not simply a matter of support for the conspirators being regarded as a crime; so, too, were a casual conversation, chance meetings, and attending a dinner or a show in their company. And all the while, in addition to the ruthless interrogation by Nero and Tigellinus, Faenius Rufus was piling on violent pressure. He had not yet been named by the informers, and to make people believe that he knew nothing, he was pitiless toward his accomplices. 4. When Subrius Flavus was standing at his side and inquired with a gesture whether he should draw his sword and assassinate Nero during the actual investigation, the same Rufus shook his head and checked the man’s ardor, as he was already bringing his hand to his sword hilt.46

Piso now vacillates.

Tac. Ann. 15.59.1. After the conspiracy had been betrayed, at the time when Milichus was being given his audience and Scaevinus was hesitating, there were some who urged Piso to march into the camp or mount the rostrum and work on the feelings of the soldiery and the people. If his fellow conspirators rallied in support of his effort, they told him, nonpartisans would also follow; the coup, once started, would have great publicity, which was extremely important for revolutionary movements. 2. Against this, Nero had taken no precautions, and brave men, too, were unnerved by the unexpected—there was much less chance then of a counterattack from this stage performer, with Tigellinus and his concubines at his side! Many things that the timid think difficult are brought off just by the attempt! 3. With the numbers involved, hoping for silence and loyalty was useless when all those minds and bodies could be worked on—torture or bribery can penetrate anything! Men would come to shackle him, too, and finally put him to an ignominious death, they said. How much more creditable to die embracing his state and calling for help for its liberty! Better that the soldiers not join him and that the plebs abandon him—provided that he himself, if his life must be prematurely taken, make his death a credit to his ancestors and to his descendants.47

4. Piso was not persuaded. He spent a short time in the streets, after which he shut himself up at home and stiffened his resolve to meet the end—until the arrival of military units (men of Nero’s choosing, newly recruited or recently enlisted—veterans were feared as being infected with sympathy for Piso). 5. He died by severing the veins in his arms. His will, marked by disgusting obsequiousness toward Nero, he made as a concession to his wife, whom he loved. She was of low birth, with only good looks to commend her, and Piso had taken her out of an earlier marriage to a friend of his. The woman’s name was Satria Galla, the former husband’s Domitius Silus. Both contributed to Piso’s bad name: the man by his acquiescence, the woman by her shame.⁴⁸

Plautius Lateranus and then Seneca are the next victims.

Tac. Ann. 15.60.1. The next murder that Nero registered was that of the consul designate Plautius Lateranus, and with such speed as not to allow him to embrace his children or have that short moment to choose how to die. He was rushed to a location reserved for punishments for slaves and there was butchered at the hands of the tribune Statius. Lateranus maintained all the while a resolute silence and did not reproach the tribune with involvement in the plot.

2. Next came the killing of Annaeus Seneca, for the emperor the sweetest.⁴⁹ Not that he had discovered any proof of Seneca’s involvement in the conspiracy, but after the failure of the poison, he could now go to work with the sword.50 3. In fact, Natalis alone had implicated Seneca, and only to the extent of saying that he had been sent to visit him when he was ill and to express dissatisfaction over his refusing Piso access to him. It would be better, Natalis had said to him, if the two men developed their friendship by meeting on cordial terms, and Seneca’s reply had been that conversations between the two, and frequent meetings, were of advantage to neither, but his own life depended on Piso’s safety.⁵¹ 4. Gavius Silvanus, tribune of the praetorian cohort, was instructed to report these details to Seneca and ask if he acknowledged such to be Natalis’s words and his own reply.⁵² Seneca, perhaps intentionally, had been returning from Campania that day and had made a stop at his country estate four miles from Rome. The tribune came to this spot as evening was coming on, and he surrounded the villa with some military units. Then, as Seneca was dining with his wife, Pompeia Paulina,⁵³ and two friends,⁵⁴ he [the tribune] brought him the emperor’s message.

61.1. Seneca replied that Natalis had been sent to him, that he had expressed dissatisfaction on Piso’s behalf that Piso had been kept from visiting him, and that he had then excused himself for this on the grounds of ill health and his love of the quiet life. He had no reason to put the life of a private individual ahead of his own safety, he said, nor was he temperamentally prone to obsequiousness—and nobody knew that better than Nero, who had more often had experience of his outspokenness than his servility!55

2. These remarks of Seneca’s were reported by the tribune to Nero while he was with Poppaea and Tigellinus—the emperor’s closest advisers in his savage periods.⁵⁶ Nero asked Silvanus whether Seneca intended to commit suicide. The tribune then asserted that he had recognized no signs of apprehension, and no distress in his language or expression. He was therefore told to go back and deliver the death sentence. 3. Fabius Rusticus records that the tribune did not return the way he had come but made a detour to the prefect Faenius.⁵⁷ Having told Faenius about Nero’s orders, he asked whether he should obey them, and was advised by him—with that fatal cowardice now common to all—to carry them out. 4. For Silvanus, too, was one of the conspirators, and he was now increasing the number of crimes he had plotted to avenge. He did spare himself from saying or seeing anything, however, sending one of the centurions to Seneca with the announcement of his final obligation.

62.1. Undaunted, Seneca called for the tablets of his will.⁵⁸ The centurion refused, and Seneca, turning to his friends, declared that, since he was barred from repaying them for their services, he was leaving them the one thing he still had but the one that was also the best: the model of his life.59 If they kept that in mind, he said, they would gain a reputation for good character as their reward for loyal friendship. 2. At the same time, he alternated normal conversation with sterner, coercive tones in order to halt their tears and revive their courage. Where were their philosophical tenets, he asked, and where that rationality they had pondered on for so many years to counter impending misfortune? For who had been unaware of Nero’s ruthlessness? After killing his mother and his brother, nothing else remained but to add the murder of his guardian and tutor.⁶⁰

63.1. After these words, which had the air of a public address, Seneca embraced his wife. Then, softening a little, despite his present resolve, he asked and entreated her to limit her grief and not keep it up forever—she should find honorable solace for the loss of her husband in reflecting on the life of virtue that he had lived. Her firm response was that she, too, had decided to die, and she demanded for herself the executioner’s blow.⁶¹ 2. Seneca was not opposed to her noble decision, and his love also prompted him not to leave the woman he cherished above all to be maltreated. “I showed you how to make life more palatable,” he said, “but you prefer the glory of death, and I shall not begrudge you the fine example. For such a courageous end, let us both have the same resolve, but may your leaving have the greater fame.” After that, they cut their arms with the same stroke of the blade.62 3. Seneca’s aging body, emaciated by his spare diet, allowed only slow escape for the blood, and so he also severed the veins in his legs and at the backs of his knees. Worn down by the cruel torment, and not wishing to break his wife’s spirit with his suffering or have himself lapse into indecision through seeing her agonies, he persuaded her to retire to another bedroom. And since his eloquence still remained even in his very last moments, he summoned his scribes and dictated a long work to them. As this has been published in his own words, I refrain from paraphrasing it.⁶³

64.1. Nero, in fact, had no personal grudge against Paulina, and fearing a surge of animosity over his cruelty, he ordered her suicide to be stopped.⁶⁴ Prompted by the soldiers, her slaves and freedmen bandaged her arms and stanched the bleeding, though whether she was unconscious is unclear. 2. (For, the public being ever ready to believe the worst, there was no shortage of people who thought that she had sought the renown of dying with her husband as long as she feared that Nero was implacable, but fell victim to life’s charms when offered a more favorable prospect.) To her life, she then added only a few years, maintaining a laudable fidelity to her husband’s memory, and with face and body so pale and white as to show that much of her life force had been sapped away.⁶⁵

3. Meanwhile, Seneca’s death was slow and drawn out. He begged Statius Annaeus,⁶⁶ who had proved himself a steadfast friend and skillful doctor over a long period, to bring out the poison that was used for executing those condemned in the public court of Athens and that had been prepared sometime before.⁶⁷ When this was brought, Seneca drained it, but in vain—his limbs were already cold, rendering his body immune to the poison’s effects. 4. Finally, he went into a pool of hot water, spattering the slaves closest to him, and adding the comment that with that liquid he was making a libation to Jupiter the Liberator.68 He was then taken into the bath, where he suffocated in the steam. He was cremated with no funeral ceremony. Such was the instruction he had left in his will when he was—even at the height of his wealth and power—thinking about his end.

65. There was a rumor that Subrius Flavus had formulated a secret plan with the centurions, of which Seneca was not unaware.⁶⁹ The plan was that, after Nero had been assassinated through Piso’s initiative, Piso would also be killed, and the imperial command would be transferred to Seneca, an innocent man and chosen for supreme power on the basis of his renowned virtues. In fact, there was also a saying of Flavus in circulation that the disgrace remained the same if a lyre player was removed and a tragic actor succeeded him (for while Nero sang with the lyre, Piso did so in tragic costume).⁷⁰

Dio 62.25. To tell of all the others who lost their lives would be a great undertaking. In Seneca’s case, he also wanted to end the life of his wife, Paulina, saying that he had convinced her both to despise death and also to wish her life’s end to be simultaneous with his, 2. and so he slit her veins too. His death, however, was lingering, and he was helped to his end by the soldiers and died before her. Thus, Paulina survived him.⁷¹ Nevertheless, Seneca did not set to work on himself before revising the book he was writing and storing the others with certain people, as he was afraid that they would be destroyed if they came into Nero’s hands. 3. Such was the man’s death, despite the fact that he had left Nero’s court on the grounds of poor health and had freely given him all his property, allegedly for the emperor’s building program. Seneca’s brothers also perished later.

Further executions follow.

Tac. Ann.15.66.1. The soldiers’ part in the conspiracy no longer remained secret either, as the informers were burning to denounce Faenius Rufus, whom they could not bear both as conspirator and inquisitor. So, as he was pressured and threatened, Scaevinus said with a smile that no one knew more than Faenius himself, and he urged him to do such a fine emperor a favor of his own accord.72 2. Faenius had no reply to this, nor was he silent; instead, he stumbled over his words and was clearly panic-stricken. Then, after a concerted effort by the other conspirators, particularly the Roman knight Cervarius Proculus, to have him convicted, he was, on the emperor’s orders, seized and put in irons by Cassius, a soldier who was in attendance because of his remarkable strength.

67.1. Presently, the tribune Subrius Flavus was brought down by the same men’s denunciation. At first, he tried to make difference in character his defense, arguing that a soldier such as he would not have associated with unarmed and effeminate individuals for so great a deed. Then, under pressure, he seized on the glory of confessing. 2. Interrogated by Nero on the reasons that brought him to forget his military oath, Subrius declared: “I hated you, but none of your soldiers was more loyal to you while you deserved our affection. I started to hate you when you became the murderer of your mother and wife,⁷³ and a charioteer, actor, and arsonist.” 3. I have given the man’s very words because, while they were not published like Seneca’s, the powerful, rough-and-ready sentiments of a military man were no less worth recording.

It was well known that nothing in that conspiracy was more painful to Nero’s ears, for while he was ready to commit crimes, he was unused to being told what he was doing. 4. Flavus’s execution was entrusted to the tribune Veianius Niger. Niger ordered a pit to be dug in a neighboring field, and Flavus criticized it for being shallow and narrow. “Not even this accords with military standard,” he remarked to the soldiers standing around him. When he was told to be firm in stretching out his neck, he replied, “I just wish your blow could be as firm!” The tribune was trembling a lot and had difficulty decapitating him with two blows. He then bragged about his callousness to Nero, saying Flavus had been killed by him with a “stroke and a half.”

68.1. The next instance of fortitude was provided by the centurion Sulpicius Asper, who, when Nero asked why he had conspired to murder him, briefly replied that nothing else could be done for all his atrocities.74 He then suffered the prescribed penalty. The other centurions did not disgrace themselves in facing execution either,⁷⁵ though Faenius Rufus did not have the same resolve and even entered lamentations in his will.

Dio 62.24.1. They wanted to be delivered from these ills⁷⁶ themselves, and they wanted to rid him [Nero] of them, as the centurion Sulpicius Asper and the military tribune Subrius Flavius, both members of his bodyguard, openly admitted even to Nero himself. 2. When Sulpicius Asper was asked by Nero the reason for the projected coup, he replied, “I could not help you in any other way,”⁷⁷ and Flavius said, “I loved you and hated you more than anyone. I loved you when I had hopes that you would be a good emperor, and I hated you because you do these and other things—I cannot be subservient to a charioteer and a lyre-player.”⁷⁸ Information was laid against these men, and they were punished, and because of them, many others were, too.

The Consul Vestinus, husband of Statilia Messalina, is executed because Nero covets his wife.

Tac. Ann. 15.68.2. Nero was waiting for the consul Vestinus, whom he thought a violent man who detested him, to be included in the charge. However, none of the conspirators had communicated their plans to Vestinus, some because of old quarrels with him, more because they thought him a reckless and difficult person. 3. Nero’s loathing of Vestinus had arisen from a close companionship with him. In the course of this, Vestinus came to know well, and to despise, the emperor’s cowardice, while Nero came to fear his friend’s outspokenness; he had many times been the butt of his biting witticisms, which, when they have drawn largely on the truth, leave behind a bitter recollection. There was, in addition, a recent motive for his animosity: Vestinus had married Statilia Messalina, though he was not unaware that Nero was one of her lovers.79

69.1. Thus, with no charge and no accuser forthcoming, and as Nero was therefore unable to adopt the guise of judge, he resorted to the force of the despot, sending the tribune Gerellanus to him at the head of a cohort of soldiers. Gerellanus was under orders to take preemptive measures against the consul’s designs, seizing Vestinus’s “stronghold” and overwhelming his “handpicked young men.” (Vestinus owned a house overlooking the Forum, and a number of handsome slaves, all of the same age.) 2. On that day, Vestinus had completed all his consular duties and was hosting a dinner party—fearing nothing or else concealing his fear—when the soldiers entered and told him he was summoned by the tribune. With not a moment’s delay, he got up, and everything was hurriedly carried out at once. He shut himself in his bedroom; the doctor was in attendance; the veins were cut; and, still strong, he was carried into the bath and immersed in hot water, letting out no exclamation of self-pity. 3. Meanwhile, those who had been reclining at table with him were surrounded by guards and were not released until late at night. By then, Nero with amusement had pictured their fright as they awaited death following the dinner, and he remarked that they had been punished sufficiently for their consular feast.⁸⁰

70.1. Nero next ordered the murder of Annaeus Lucanus. As the blood flowed, Lucanus felt his feet and hands grow cold and his life gradually slip away from his extremities, though his breast was still warm and his mental powers intact. At that point, he remembered a poem he had composed in which he had presented a wounded soldier dying a similar kind of death.81 He recited those very verses, and they were his last words. Following that, Senecio, Quintianus, and Scaevinus met their ends, in a manner at variance with their soft living of earlier days, and the remainder of the conspirators soon followed, though without any memorable deed or saying.

Further reprisals follow.

Tac. Ann. 15.71.1. Meanwhile, the city was filling up with funerals, and the Capitol with sacrificial animals. After the killing of a son—or of a brother, relative, or friend—people gave thanks to the gods, decorated their homes with laurel,⁸² fell at the knees of Nero himself, and plied his right hand with kisses.⁸³ And Nero, believing this to be a manifestation of joy, rewarded Antonius Natalis and Cervarius Proculus for their speedy denunciations with a grant of impunity. Milichus, who was enriched with gifts, adopted the name “Saviour,” but used the Greek word for it. 2. Of the tribunes, Gavius Silvanus died by his own hand, although acquitted; and Statius Proxumus wasted the pardon he had received from the emperor by making a vainglorious exit. Then Pompeius < … >, Cornelius Martialis, Flavius Nepos, and Statius Domitius were relieved of the tribuneship; the grounds were not that they hated the emperor but that they were nevertheless thought to do so. 3. Novius Priscus was given exile (for his friendship with Seneca), as were Glitius Gallus and Annius Pollio (for being discredited rather than found guilty). Priscus was accompanied by his wife, Artoria Flaccilla, and Gallus by Egnatia Maximilla (who had great wealth, which was initially left untouched but later confiscated, and both circumstances redounded to her glory).⁸⁴

4. Rufrius Crispinus was also exiled, and though the conspiracy supplied the grounds, he was actually hated by Nero for having once been married to Poppaea.85 In the case of Verginius Flavus⁸⁶ and Musonius Rufus,⁸⁷ it was the fame of their names that ensured their exile, for Verginius promoted the studies of our young people by his eloquence, Musonius by his philosophical teaching.⁸⁸ Cluvidienus Quietus, Julius Agrippa, Blitius Catulinus, Petronius Priscus, and Julius Altinus—as though to round out the numbers and the list—were granted islands in the Aegean Sea. Scaevinus’s wife, Caedicia, however, and Caesennius Maximus89 were forbidden residence in Italy, and it was only from the sentence that they discovered they had been prosecuted. Annaeus Lucanus’s mother, Acilia, was simply ignored, with no acquittal and no punishment.

72.1. Upon finishing this business, Nero held an assembly of the troops. There he distributed two thousand sestertii to every member of the rank and file⁹⁰ and made them the further gift of complimentary grain rations, which previously had cost them the market rate.⁹¹ Then he convened the Senate, as though he were going to discuss achievements in war, and conferred triumphal honors on the ex-consul Petronius Turpilianus,⁹² the praetor designate Cocceius Nerva,⁹³ and the praetorian prefect Tigellinus. He honored Tigellinus and Nerva to the extent of placing their busts in the Palatium, in addition to their triumphal statues in the Forum. 2. Consular insignia were decreed for Nymphidius Sabinus, and since this is the first time he has come up, I shall give a brief resume, for he, too, will be part of the calamities that befell Rome.94 He had as his mother a freedwoman who had spread her fine body around the slaves and freedmen of the emperors, and he claimed to have been fathered by Gaius Caesar for, by some chance, he was tall of stature and had a grim-looking face—or else Gaius Caesar, who lusted even after whores, did in fact have his way with Sabinus’s mother, too. < … >⁹⁵

73.1. After his speech among the senators, Nero also delivered an edict to the people, to which he added evidence that had been gathered together on writing scrolls, and confessions of those convicted,⁹⁶ for in fact he was being lambasted regularly in talk among the masses for having put to death famous and innocent men out of jealousy or fear. 2. However, that a conspiracy had begun, had come to fruition, and been suppressed was not doubted at the time by any with a care to discover the truth, and it was also later admitted by those who returned to the city after Nero’s death. 3. But in the Senate all were debasing themselves with flattery (and the greater their sorrow, the more they flattered). During this, Junius Gallio, fearful after the death of his brother Seneca, and pleading for his life, was denounced by Salienus Clemens, who called him an enemy and a murderer.97 Finally, Clemens was restrained by a unanimous appeal from the Senate that he not give the impression of profiting from public misfortunes to satisfy a private animosity, and not give rise to fresh savagery by dragging up things that, through the emperor’s clemency, had been laid to rest or forgotten.

74.1. Decrees were then passed for gifts and thanks offerings to the gods, with special honors for the Sun for having uncovered the secrets of the conspiracy with his power (he has an old temple in the Circus, the prospective location for the coup).⁹⁸ The Games of Ceres in the Circus were also to be held with an increased number of horse races, and the month of April was to receive Nero’s name.⁹⁹ A temple was to be erected to Salus in place of the one from which Scaevinus had taken his weapon.¹⁰⁰ 2. Nero himself consecrated the dagger in the Capitol, it bearing the inscription “To Jupiter the Avenger.”¹⁰¹ (Although it was not noticed at the time, this was, after the armed insurrection of Julius Vindex, taken to be an omen foretelling future vengeance.)¹⁰² 3. I find in the records of the Senate that the consul designate Anicius Cerialis103 proposed that a temple to the Divine Nero be erected as soon as possible, at public expense.¹⁰⁴ Cerialis surely made this motion on the grounds that Nero had gone beyond the limits of mortality and deserved the worship of human beings, but Nero himself vetoed it in case it could be interpreted by some as an omen of his death, for divine honors are not paid to an emperor before he has stopped living among humans.

Dio 62.27.4. Why would one bother to recount all the gifts made to the praetorians at the time of this conspiracy or the outrageous things voted to Nero and his friends? In fact, the philosopher Musonius Rufus was banished over such things.¹⁰⁵

The atmosphere generated by the Pisonian conspiracy is one of mistrust and suspicion, and this contributes to the high number of deaths of perceived opponents of the regime, including Vinicianus, son-in-law of Corbulo.

Suet. Ner. 36.1. The violence he directed against those not members of his family was no less vicious. A comet, which is commonly thought to predict the end for very great rulers, had begun to appear for a number of nights in succession.¹⁰⁶ Nero was worried by the phenomenon, but he was told by his astrologer Balbillus that royalty usually expiated such portents by killing some distinguished personage and thereby turning them away from themselves and onto the heads of important people.107 He therefore decided on the annihilation of every one of his most noble subjects and was all the more determined, and seemingly with some justification, after news of two conspiracies was made public, the first and more threatening being that of Piso in Rome and the later one that of Vinicianus,¹⁰⁸ which was hatched and uncovered in Beneventum.¹⁰⁹ 2. The conspirators defended themselves in court bound with three sets of chains. Some readily admitted the charge, and a few even made a virtue of it, saying that it was only by his death that they could assist Nero when he had brought infamy on himself by all manner of crimes. The children of the condemned were banished from Rome or put to death by poison or starvation.¹¹⁰ It is on record that some were killed together at one meal, along with their pedagogues and attendants, while others were prevented from acquiring their daily sustenance.

One of the most celebrated victims is Nero’s arbiter elegantiae, Petronius.

Tac. Ann. 16.18.1. In Petronius’s case, a brief background sketch is necessary.111 His days were spent sleeping, his nights on the duties and delights of life.¹¹² While others had been brought fame by industry, in his instance, it was by idleness; and yet he was not considered a glutton and a spendthrift, like most who squander their fortunes, but a man of educated extravagance. The more outrageous his words and actions, which had a distinctive sort of nonchalance about them, the more acceptable they became as a demonstration of his sincerity. 2. As proconsul of Bithynia, however, and subsequently as consul, he showed himself to be a man of energy who was competent in business. Then, sliding back into his vices or through imitating vices, he was taken into Nero’s small band of cronies as his “arbiter of good taste”; in his jaded state, Nero considered nothing delightful or agreeable unless it had Petronius’s approval. 3. That explains Tigellinus’s envy, directed against a rival who outclassed him in the science of pleasure. Tigellinus therefore went to work on the emperor’s ruthlessness, to which all his other passions took second place, accusing Petronius of friendship with Scaevinus. He also bribed one of Petronius’s slaves to inform on him, removed any means of defense, and imprisoned most of his household staff.

19.1. As it happened, Nero had set off for Campania during the days in question, and Petronius, who had gone as far as Cumae, was detained there, and he did not let fear or hope further delay him.113 2. He was, however, in no rush to end his life. Having cut his veins, he bandaged them and opened them again, as he felt inclined, in the meantime chatting with his friends, but not on serious matters or topics that would win him glory for his resolve. He in turn listened to their words—nothing on the immortality of the soul or the tenets of philosophers, but light poetry and playful verses. To some of his slaves, he presented gifts, to others a whipping. He started dinner and let himself drop off to sleep so that his death, though imposed, might look natural. 3. Even in his will, he did not, like most who perished, flatter Nero, Tigellinus, or any other of the powerful. Instead, he itemized in writing the emperor’s depravities, naming the male prostitutes and women involved, and describing all their novel sexual acts, and sent it to Nero under seal.¹¹⁴ He then broke his signet ring to prevent its later use for manufacturing danger.¹¹⁵

Nero also takes action against opponents and against the Stoic philosophers.

Tac. Ann. 16.21.1. After butchering so many distinguished men, Nero finally felt a deep desire to exterminate virtue itself by killing Thrasea Paetus¹¹⁶ and Barea Soranus.117 He had long nursed a grudge against both, and there were additional motives for his resentment of Thrasea: he had left the Senate when the matter of Agrippina was under discussion, as I have noted, and at the Iuvenalian Games, his services had not been conspicuous. That particular offense went deeper because at Patavium, his birthplace, Thrasea had actually sung in tragic costume at the Cetastian Games established by the Trojan Antenor.¹¹⁸ 2. Furthermore, on the day that the praetor Antistius was being sentenced to death for the lampoons he composed on Nero, he successfully proposed a lighter penalty, and, after deliberately missing the meeting when divine honors were decreed to Poppaea, he had missed her funeral.¹¹⁹ 3. Capito Cossutianus would not allow these things to be forgotten.¹²⁰ He was of a criminal disposition anyway, but he also resented Thrasea because it was to his influence that he owed an earlier conviction. That was when Thrasea gave assistance to the Cilician delegation that was indicting Capito for extortion.

22.1. In fact, Capito made the following accusations against him as well. At the beginning of the year, Thrasea would avoid the customary oath.¹²¹ Though vested with a quindecimviral priesthood, he did not attend the formal prayer offerings.¹²² He had never offered sacrifices on behalf of the emperor’s safety or his heavenly voice. He had not entered the Curia in three years, though at one time he had attended diligently and tirelessly, conspicuously championing or opposing even quite ordinary senatorial resolutions. And, most recently, when people were racing to put a stop to Silanus and Vetus, he had preferred to spend that time on the private affairs of his clients.123 This was already dissidence and partisanship, said Capito, and it was outright war if many dared do the same thing. …

23.1. As for the indictment of Barea Soranus, the Roman knight Ostorius Sabinus had already laid a personal claim to it on the basis of Soranus’s proconsulship of Asia. During his mandate, Soranus had increased the emperor’s resentment by his fairness and industry, and also because he had carefully cleared the harbor of Ephesus¹²⁴ and refrained from punishing the state of Pergamum for forcefully preventing Nero’s freedman Acratus from making off with statues and artwork.¹²⁵ However, the charges laid were friendship with Plautus and courting popularity to induce his province to revolt. 2. The date chosen for Soranus’s condemnation was that on which Tiridates was coming to accept the throne of Armenia. This was in order to shade a crime at home by turning talk to foreign affairs—or so that Nero could flaunt his imperial greatness by a kinglike act of putting illustrious men to death.¹²⁶

24.1. The whole city poured out to welcome the emperor and see the king, but Thrasea was barred from the gathering. He was not despondent, and in fact he wrote a petition to Nero asking to be informed of the accusations against him and declaring that he would clear himself if he were given notification of the charges and an opportunity to refute them. 2. Nero quickly accepted the petition, hoping that a fearful Thrasea had written something that might promote the emperor’s renown and discredit his own reputation. When this turned out not to be the case, it was Nero’s turn to become frightened—at the prospect of the innocent man’s expression, spirit, and independence—and he had the Senate convened.

Tac. Ann. 16.25–33: The Senate determines that Thrasea, Soranus, and also Soranus’s daughter, Servilia, should be allowed to choose the manner of their death.

Tac. Ann. 16.34.1. Thrasea was in his gardens when, as evening approached, the consul’s quaestor was sent to him.127 He had gathered together a large crowd of illustrious men and women and was focusing his attention mostly on Demetrius, a professor of the Cynic philosophical school.¹²⁸ With him, as could be judged from the earnestness of his expression, and from the more audible parts of their conversation, he was examining the nature of the soul and the separation of the spirit and the body. Then one of his close friends, Domitius Caecilianus, arrived and told him of the Senate’s decision. 2. Thrasea therefore urged all present, who were weeping and protesting, to leave quickly and not incur danger themselves by association with a man doomed to die. Arria’s aim was to accompany her husband to his end, after the example of her mother, Arria, but Thrasea advised her to hold onto her life and not remove the only support enjoyed by the daughter they shared.¹²⁹

35.1. He then went to the colonnade, where the quaestor found him almost joyful because he had learned that his son-in-law Helvidius had merely been barred from Italy.130 He accepted the decree of the Senate and took Helvidius and Demetrius into his bedroom. He offered the veins of both arms and, letting the blood flow freely, sprinkled it on the ground. He then called the quaestor over and said, “We are making a libation to Jupiter the Liberator. Look, young man!¹³¹ I pray the gods avert the omen, but you have been born into a time when it is helpful to toughen the mind with examples of firmness.” 2. Then, as his slow death brought agonizing pains, turning to Demetrius …¹³²

Dio 62.26. Thrasea and Soranus, who had become the leading men in terms of family, wealth, and every moral virtue, were not accused of treason, but they, too, met their ends, for being such people as they were! A philosopher, Publius Egnatius Celer, gave false evidence against Soranus.¹³³ Soranus had two companions, Cassius Asclepiodotus of Nicaea and the above-mentioned Egnatius of Berytus.¹³⁴ 2. Far from denouncing the man in any way, Asclepiodotus went so far as to testify to his outstanding qualities (and for doing so was exiled, though he was later recalled in the reign of Galba). Egnatius, like many involved in that sort of thing, received cash and honors for his sycophancy, but he was later sent into exile. 3. Soranus was therefore put to death for having performed magic of some kind, for which he used the services of his daughter, because the two had made a type of sacrifice when he was ill. In Thrasea’s case, it was for not regularly attending the Senate, which purportedly signified displeasure with its decrees, for never listening to Nero’s lyre playing, for not sacrificing to his divine voice, and for not putting on public oratorical displays, 4. although he had acted in a tragedy staged every thirty years in his hometown of Patavium. As he slit his vein, he raised his hand and said: “I make a libation of this blood to you, Jupiter Liberator.”135

1 Tacitus thus ends Book 14 with a brief notice on the punishment meted out to prominent freedmen in AD 62.

2 Doryphorus held the post of a libellis (in charge of petitions). He had great influence over Nero and on one occasion received a gift of ten million sestertii from him. He was reputed to have gone through a form of marriage with the emperor (Suet. Ner. 29; Dio 61.5.4). In this last context, he was possibly confused with Pythagoras, about whom a similar, more detailed claim is made.

3 Pallas was formerly a slave of Antonia. Under Claudius, he took control of finances (a rationibus) and promoted Agrippina’s marriage to the emperor as well as the adoption of Nero. Dio claims that he was worth 400 million sestertii. He received major honors from the Senate under Claudius but was dismissed by Nero in 55 (Suet. Claud. 28; Tac. Ann. 12.1.2, 25.1, 53.2, 13.2, 14.1; Dio 62.14.3).

4 The identity of Romanus is not known. He is perhaps the Tiberius Claudius Romanus mentioned in the calendar of Antium (Fasti Antiates, CIL X 6638 C 3, 2). The context indicates very strongly that, like Doryphorus and Pallas, he was a powerful freedman, and the abrupt introduction (if there is no gap here in the manuscript) suggests that he is a figure already familiar to the reader and that he appeared in the Claudian books of Tacitus that are now lost.

5 Tacitus expresses himself cryptically here, suggesting that Seneca was engaged in some sort of criminal collaboration with Piso, but we are not told the nature of the collaboration, with the implication, but only an implication, that it was seditious in nature. Unless the action was overtly treasonous, it is hard to see why a “collaboration” with Piso, who was relatively obscure, could have been seen as criminal. And if it were treasonous, it would surely have made Piso a marked man. Tacitus also seems to suggest that Piso’s sense of insecurity compelled him to initiate the conspiracy against Nero, although in the account proper of the plot it is stressed that Piso was not the prime mover. There is also a difficulty here in that, although Piso was at least indirectly implicated in murky transactions, Nero seems to have harbored no suspicions about him but remained friendly enough with him to be a frequent visitor to his villa at Baiae. Also, it is very hard to see how Seneca could have turned the tables about collaboration with Piso on his accuser: Why would Romanus’s consorting with Piso have been criminal? And what happened to Romanus?

6 Marcus Iulius Vestinus Atticus was the son of an equestrian from Vienna (Vienne) in Gallia Narbonensis. His father was an intimate of Claudius and had a distinguished career. Little is known about the son outside the context of the conspiracy and his marriage to Nero’s third wife, Statilia Messalina, but Claudius in his speech on the Gauls does speak of priestly offices conferred on the sons of his friend (Smallwood 369). From Tacitus’s account of the conspiracy, we learn that Vestinus lived in Rome in some style, in a house overlooking the forum. He would be put to death not, according to Tacitus (Ann. 15.68.3), because of his involvement in the conspiracy but because Nero coveted his wife.

7 It is striking that in Dio’s account no mention is made of any role for Piso. Dio gives a central role to Seneca. Although he does not explicitly identify him as the leader, by mentioning his name first he gives an impression of prominence. He also gives a more dominant role to Faenius Rufus, making no mention of his less than distinguished conduct later.

8 We see an inherent weakness in the conspiracy at the outset. At 15.65, Tacitus tells us that Subrius is said to have planned to replace Nero ultimately not with Piso but with Seneca. Nothing is known about Subrius or his colleague beyond what is told in the sources about this episode. As Tacitus concedes, he gives them a prime role in the conspiracy essentially because of their later conduct, after the plot had been exposed.

9 Annaeus Lucanus is the famous poet Lucan, author of De Bello Civili about the conflict between Caesar and Pompey; on the paternal side, he was the nephew of Seneca. He was born in AD 39 in Cordoba in Spain, to a well-to-do family, and was brought to Rome as an infant. He became one of Nero’s intimate circle and won a prize at the Neronia of AD 60 (Stat. Silv. 2.7.58). At some point, he is said to have held a quaestorship, although he was only twenty-six at the time of his death. The notion of artistic envy is raised elsewhere in Tacitus, as in Nero’s motives for murdering Britannicus, and is no doubt exaggerated. Tacitus much admired the poetry of Lucan, and groups him with Horace and Vergil (Dial. 20.8).

10 Plautius Lateranus was accused of adultery with Messalina in AD 48. He was expelled at that time from the Senate but escaped the death penalty because of the reputation of his uncle Aulus Plautius, who commanded the Roman forces against Britain in AD 43 (Tac. Ann. 11.36.4). He was readmitted to the Senate by Nero and was consul designate at the time of the conspiracy. He was the only participant of senatorial or equestrian rank to whom Tacitus ascribes lofty motives. Juvenal (10.15) cites him as an example of the dangers of wealth and observes how his fine house on the Caelian Hill was seized on Nero’s orders. It presumably became imperial property. As noted in Chapter I, the property of the Laterani was eventually given to the Church, and the name is preserved as “Lateran.”

11 Flavius and Afranius are unknown outside the Annals. Tacitus mentions that Flavius was a close friend of Petronius, Nero’s “arbiter of good taste” (arbiter elegantiae: Ann. 16.18.2); both shared the same languid approach to life.

12 Claudius Senecio is no doubt the person named as an ally of Nero, along with Otho, in the emperor’s affair with Acte, and identified as the son of an imperial freedman (Tac. Ann. 13.12.1); the others on the list are unknown. Antonius Natalis and Cervarius Proculus go on to give evidence against their colleagues, in Proculus’s case against Faenius, for which they are granted a pardon (Tac. Ann. 15.66, 71.1).

13 Gavius Silvanus came from Augusta Taurinorum (Turin) (CIL V. 7003). As praetorian tribune, he would have been a soldier of long service. He would be acquitted but later committed suicide.

14 Faenius Rufus was an equestrian who in AD 55 became the prefect in charge of the grain supply, thanks to the support of Agrippina (Tac. Ann. 13.22.1). It was an important office, and he may have been responsible for the construction of the horrea Faeniana (CIL VI 37796). He was held in generally high esteem in Rome. In AD 62, he was appointed joint prefect of the praetorians as a colleague of Tigellinus (Tac. Ann. 14.51.2).

15 Ofonius Tigellinus was reputedly of lowly origins, and came to be regarded as the quintessential evil counselor of Nero. From the time of Caligula, he had connections with the imperial family, and Dio (59.23.9) tells us that he was banished from Rome on the grounds of a supposed affair with Agrippina. The Scholiast on Juvenal 1.155 claims he had an affair with Agrippina and her husband, as well as with her sister and her sister’s husband, and that he went into exile in Greece and became a fisherman. Claudius allowed him to return, but he was barred from the court circles. He bought land in Apulia and raised horses. Nero made him his prefect of the vigiles in about 60 AD, and after the death of Burrus he became, in 62, praetorian prefect, along with Faenius Rufus. He was highly honored following the conspiracy and accompanied Nero on his later journey to Greece. He was forced to commit suicide by Otho.

16 Tacitus (Ann. 15.48.1) speaks of “women” being involved in the conspiracy. This is not just for rhetorical effect: Lucan denounced his own mother, Seneca’s wife attempted suicide, and Antonia, daughter of Claudius, was accused of involvement. But the only major role is attributed to Epicharis, whose courage is attested later in the account (Ann. 15.57). It is perhaps a sign of the general incompetence of the conspiracy that Epicharis somehow found out about it and then sought to recruit allies. It is frustrating that Tacitus provides so little information on her background and does not tell us who her former owner was. According to Polyaenus (Strat. 8.62), she was a prostitute and the mistress of Seneca’s brother, Annaeus Mela, the father of Lucan. Mela killed himself when he was suspected of being an accessory to the conspiracy (Tac. Ann. 16.17.1–5). It is possible that Seneca and his brother had a more central role in the conspiracy than Tacitus (unlike Dio) chooses to ascribe to them, especially if Tacitus was following the version of Fabius Rusticus, and that Epicharis had found out about the conspiracy through them.

17 Proculus’s name is not mentioned in the actual account of the murder, but since it was engineered by the commander of the fleet at Misenum, we must assume that he was one of the commander’s subordinates. Or perhaps this passage hints at Tacitus’s use of different source materials for different episodes. It seems remarkable that Epicharis would have revealed the plot to someone with this supposed background.

18 An additional objection to the choice of Baiae for the assassination is that the location would be eerily reminiscent of Nero’s murder of Agrippina.

19 The “detested abode” is clearly an allusion to the Golden House (see Ann. 15.42.1 and Chapter VI), but this cannot yet have been ready for occupation; indeed, construction had only just begun on it, and Nero at the time was living in the Servilian Gardens (Ann. 15.55.1).

20 The chief festival of Ceres, primarily a plebeian one, was held April 12–19. The last day, the anniversary of the founding of her temple, was the main day, when horse races were held in the Circus Maximus and foxes were let loose with burning brands attached to their tails (Ovid Fast. 4.681–712).

21 The gardens are the Horti Serviliani. The identification of the “home” is uncertain.

22 The story is reminiscent of that of Haterius, who grabbed Tiberius’s knees in supplication, at the time of his accession, and knocked him over (Tac. Ann. 1.13.6).

23 The Temple of Salus stood on the Quirinal in Rome. The expression “in Etruria” follows the mention of Salus in the manuscript, assumed by editors to be a gloss, since the expression is too vague to be informative. But it may be that Tacitus wished to stress that it was not the Temple of Salus that stood on the Quirinal in Rome. This would suggest that the Etrurian temple was well known at the time. It is also possible that Tacitus was referring to a single temple but was not sure about the deity’s name. The town appears in a corrupt form in the manuscript but is almost certainly Ferentium (modern Ferentino) in Etruria, famed as the birthplace of Otho (Tac. Hist. 2.50.1; Suet. Otho 1).

24 The Temple of Ceres stood near the Circus Maximus, so it must be assumed that it had been restored after the Fire of 64 (Tac. Ann. 2.49.1).

25 Antonia was the oldest daughter of Claudius, by Aelia Paetina (Tac. Ann. 12.2.1). She married Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in AD 41 and then, after his death, Faustus Cornelius Sulla (see Chapter III). After the murder of Faustus and the death of Poppaea, Nero supposedly wanted to marry Antonia (surprisingly, if she was a conspirator), and she rejected him. Suetonius (Ner. 35.4) suggests that this was the reason why Nero decided to put her to death, implicating her in the conspiracy as an excuse. Dio (61.1.2) confirms, without elaborating, that Nero eliminated her. Pliny, according to Tacitus here, said that after the murder of Nero it was planned that Piso would join with Antonia because of her popularity, a notion that does not convince Tacitus (nor Syme [1958], 192). Marriage to Antonia would presumably have helped remove a source of opposition to Nero. Syme describes Pliny as “credulous” and deems this account a “silly story.”

26 Pliny the Elder wrote a history of the later Julio-Claudian period, and Tacitus (Ann. 13.20.2) cites him as the source for the claim that Burrus’s loyalty was not suspect. The history was mentioned by Pliny the Younger (Ep. 3.5.6) and by the elder Pliny himself (HN, Pref 20).

27 Tacitus suggests cryptically that Piso might well have pondered marrying Antonia had the conspiracy been successful and had he been appointed as successor.

28 Tacitus here seems to have forgotten about the misjudgment of Epicharis. Plutarch (De garr. 7) gives a variant explanation that a conspiracy, almost certainly this one, was betrayed by a careless comment from an indiscreet conspirator (possibly Scaevinus). He assured a prisoner about to go before Nero that by the next day he would have nothing to worry about, and he was betrayed by the prisoner to the emperor.

29 That would be April 18.

30 A general theme of the Annals is the inordinate influence exercised by women like Agrippina and Messalina over their husbands. This passage is an interesting insight into the fact that Tacitus did not feel that the excessive influence of women was restricted to the nobility.

31 The date would now be April 19.

32 The precise location of the Gardens of Servilius is uncertain. Nero went there on a later occasion (Suet. Ner. 47.1), when contemplating flight to Ostia, and they thus presumably lay between Ostia and the Palatine. Tacitus (Hist. 3.38.1) reports that Vitellius occupied them when he was seriously ill.

33 Epaphroditus was a libellis (in charge of petitions) to Nero, possibly succeeding Doryphorus, who died in AD 62 (Tac. Ann. 14.65.1), in that role. He was wealthy, the owner of gardens near the Anio Novus aqueduct (Front. Aq. 68). He would assist Nero’s suicide (Suet. Ner. 49.3; Dio 63.27.3) and was executed for so doing by Domitian, on the grounds that one should never slay a patron, no matter how well motivated one may be (Suet. Dom. 14.4; Dio 67.14.4). He was a close friend of Josephus, who dedicated his Antiquities to him (Joseph. AJ 1.8, 430; Ap. 1.1, 2.1, 2.296). According to the Byzantine encyclopedia the Suda, the famed philosopher Epictetus was originally one of his slaves. We know from epigraphic evidence that Epaphroditus received honors, and these could well have been in recognition of the services he rendered in exposing this plot.

34 Legacies in a will were confirmed only when debts had been paid off. The same would apply to manumission of slaves made in a will.

35 We have to assume here that Milichus had accompanied Scaevinus when he visited Natalis. Piso’s name would be expected to ring alarm bells, not necessarily because of the present conspiracy (he had not yet been named in that connection) but because he had been suspected of conspiracy some three years earlier, in AD 62 (Tac. Ann. 14.65.2).

36 Torture was a device regularly used to extract information from slaves. Its use on Roman citizens is strongly implied by Suetonius (Tib. 62.1) in describing the response of Tiberius to the evidence that his son Drusus was poisoned. Claudius promised to abstain from it upon his accession, but it proved an empty promise, as even senators were tortured (Dio 60.15.6); Tacitus (Ann. 11.22.1) records that an equestrian, Gnaeus Nonius, was tortured in connection with a plot to assassinate Claudius.

37 On Seneca, see Tac. Ann. 15.60.2.

38 On Lucan, see Tac. Ann. 15.49.2–4.

39 The anonymous Life of Lucan tells us that the poet’s mother, Aelia (the spelling of her name is uncertain), came from Cordoba and was the daughter of one of the city’s most famous orators, Acilius Lucanus. Her life would be spared (Tac. Ann. 15.71.5 [Acilia]). No harm came to Lucan’s wife, Argentaria Polla, who lived on for many years and was active as a patron of literature (Stat. Silv. 2 praef.; Mart. 7.21–23, 10.64).

40 Glitius Gallus was perhaps connected to the general Corbulo through the latter’s mother, who was first married to a Publius Glitius Gallus (CIL V 5345). He was banished to the island of Andros, where his wife accompanied him. His possessions were later restored to him by Otho (Plut. Otho 1.3; implied by Tac. Hist. 1.90.1).

41 Annius Pollio was also exiled. He may be the son of the Annius Pollio consul in AD 21 or 22, and the grandson of Vinicianus, consul late in Tiberius’s reign, who played a prominent role in the final plot against Caligula and was later involved in the revolt of Furius Camillus against Claudius in AD 42, committing suicide when it failed (Dio 50.15.2–5). Both father and grandfather were accused of treason under Tiberius (Tac. Ann. 6.9.3). Glitius and Annius were not among the conspirators identified earlier; they may be among those who returned to Rome later and testified to the conspiracy (Tac. Ann. 15.73.2).

42 Dio gives Epicharis a much more direct role in the events than does Tacitus. Here she is an active conspirator, and the details of the plot have been confided to her. Tacitus implies that she might have found out about it accidentally.

43 The contrast between the conduct of these men and Epicharis as just described is striking and deliberate.

44 Presumably, Nero would have strengthened the unit at Ostia and at landing places on the Tiber.

45 Germans, mainly from Batavia, constituted the main element of the emperor’s private bodyguard and were distinct from the praetorians, who were a formal part of the Roman army. The Germans were recruited initially by Augustus and disbanded after the Varan disaster, but were reinstated shortly afterward. They proved to be fiercely loyal. They had shown their loyalty during the assassination of Caligula, when, unlike the praetorians, they ruthlessly sought out the murderers.

46 Tacitus is here explicit about Subrius Flavus’s conduct. Elsewhere in this section, he expresses reservations. In Ann. 15.50.4, “it was said” that Subrius was planning to make an attack on Nero, and in Ann. 16.65 there “was a rumor” that he had hatched some plot with Seneca. This new dogmatism may reflect the efforts of Tacitus’s source, Fabius Rusticus, to divert blame from Seneca.

47 Tacitus’s lengthy and rather rhetorical enumeration of the reasons for Piso to take action are intended to emphasize his dithering when there was still a chance, however slim, of the coup being successful.

48 Satria Galla and Domitius Silius are known only from these references. There is a suggestion that Domitius had been a mari complaisant in a previous affair between his wife and Piso. Otherwise, in Roman eyes there would have been no disgrace in the divorce and the remarriage.

49 Seneca dominates Tacitus’s account of the conspiracy, standing at its center. Tacitus seems determined to absolve him of guilt, and his account of how he came to be implicated is unpersuasive. He says nothing, for example, of the links between Epicharis and the Annaei (discussed earlier). He makes no comment on the coincidence that Seneca had returned from Campania to be in the vicinity of Rome at the very time that the conspiracy was taking place. In Tacitus’s account, Seneca shows a courage and dignity in someone who was probably not part of the plot, in contrast to the behavior of the titular protagonist Piso. Tacitus’s description of Seneca and his wife is sympathetic, far more than that of Dio, which suggests that they were drawing on different sources.

50 The true role of Seneca in the conspiracy is uncertain. Dio (62.24.1) presents him as a ringleader. Tacitus leaves the question of his involvement open. We know that Tacitus used two different sources for the conspiracy, Pliny the Elder and Fabius Rusticus, and the uncertainty could reflect his sources, since Fabius Rusticus was an admirer of Seneca and would have been concerned with depicting him in positive terms. The detailed and sympathetic description of the last hours of Seneca is probably an indication that Tacitus leaned heavily on Fabius. The only witness against Seneca provided by Tacitus is Antonius Natalis (Ann. 15.60.3), supposedly the contact man between Piso and Seneca, and Tacitus raises the possibility that his evidence may have simply been intended to ingratiate himself with Nero.

It can be argued that in his writings Seneca voices abhorrence of assassination (Clem 1.26.1; Ben. 2.20.2) and enunciates the principle that the philosopher should not be involved in the elimination of the tyrant (Constant. 8.5). But Seneca is someone who somehow always reconciled his lofty Stoic ideals with his own political and material advancement.

51 On the surface, this last statement might seem to indicate complicity in the plot and hope that it would succeed. The implication here of depending on someone’s safety may, however, just be a distortion of a formulaic greeting, on the lines of the standard Roman expression si valeas, bene est, ego quoque valeo (“íf you’re well, that’s good, I’m well too”).

52 Gaius Silvanus is of course one of the conspirators. His involvement here throws into higher relief the contrasting courage of Seneca.

53 Pompeia Paulina was probably the sister of Pompeius Paulinus, consul in about AD 54 and legate of upper Germany in 56 (see Tac. Ann. 13.53.1), and was the daughter of an identically named equestrian from Arelate (Arles) (Plin. HN 33.143), to whom Seneca addressed De Brevitate Vitae.

54 It may be that one of the friends present at the banquet was Fabius Rusticus the historian and that Tacitus used his firsthand account. The other could have been the friend and doctor Statius Annaeus, who is mentioned as being present during Seneca’s final banquet (Tac. Ann. 15.64.3).

55 Seneca’s response is rather convoluted, but he seems to suggest that he would have no reason to put the well-being of a private individual (that is, anyone other than the emperor) before his own, and that his career had shown that he would not say that just to flatter Piso. Seneca makes the claim at Clem. 2.2 that he was not obsequious. Tacitus seems to be at pains simply to record Seneca’s words without commenting on how convincing, or otherwise, he found them.

56 Under Augustus, a formal consilium principis (council of close advisers) was appointed by lot to sit as a group and advise the princeps. This system of lots was abandoned by Tiberius, and later emperors chose members, which could include equestrians, at their own discretion. Whether Tacitus intends to suggest that the formal consilium included Tigellinus and Poppaea is difficult to say; he may have an informal grouping in mind. This is the last appearance in Tacitus of the living Poppaea.

57 The reference to Fabius Rusticus is significant, since it is an indication that Tacitus was using him as his source for the death of Seneca. Tacitus (Ann. 13.20.2) comments that Fabius “tends to eulogize Seneca,” to whose friendship he owed his success. This particular incident serves again to show the general cowardice of those involved in the conspiracy, in contrast to the conduct of Seneca.

58 The expression seems to suggest that the tablets on which his will appeared had already been written, and the context implies that Seneca wants to add codicils to leave legacies to the friends who are present with him.

59 Seneca seems to have assumed that his will would be valid. Tacitus (Ann. 6.29.2) lays out the principle that in the case of suicide committed before condemnation, a will would remain valid, and Seneca apparently had faith that such a provision would apply. The centurion perhaps believed that the entire estate would be seized by the emperor and that allowing Seneca to add codicils might raise unnecessary legal complications. Dio (62.25.3) says that he had earlier assigned all his property to the emperor to aid in the rebuilding of Rome, but that is clearly an exaggeration, since he still at the very least had his country estates.

60 Tacitus, possibly relying on Fabius here, does not comment on the hypocrisy that would be apparent from Seneca’s own comment on Agrippina’s murder. He was similarly restrained when noting that Seneca even wrote the letter that Nero sent to the Senate justifying her murder. He reports that Seneca suffered much opprobrium for that (Ann. 14.11.3). There is no record of his making any protest when Nero supposedly murdered Britannicus, and, surprisingly, he is not reported as saying anything here about the death of Octavia, an outrage that had occurred when he had lost his influence over Nero and could not be held to blame.

61 In Dio’s account (62.25.1), which is much less favorable toward him, Seneca forced his wife to open her veins with him, but, because he died first, she was able to survive. Seneca does refer to the affection that she felt for him in the only mention of her that he makes (Sen. Ep. 104.2).

62 The death of Seneca is portrayed in the noblest of terms, and, in fact, nowhere else does Tacitus give such a detailed and moving account of someone’s death. One can of course be cynical and say that, since he knew that his survival was impossible, Seneca exploited his death to earn a noble place in history.

63 Dio (62.25.2) adds that he took the precaution of having his last words placed out of the reach of Nero.

64 No explanation is given for how the incident could have been reported to Nero and how his order for the suicide to be prevented could have been carried out in sufficient time.

65 Tacitus makes no reference to the less flattering account that appears in Dio.

66 Statius Annaeus is otherwise unknown, but his name suggests that he might have been a client of Seneca, probably his former slave, who acquired his old master’s name after manumission.

67 By Athens Seneca alludes to the famous death of Socrates, on which Seneca expatiated, calling hemlock the “elixir of immortal life” and noting that Socrates discussed the nature of death at the end (Prov. 3.12); it seems that Seneca had long envisaged Socrates’ death as a prototype for his own.

68 It was the custom to close Greek banquets with an offering made to Zeus Sôter (“Zeus the Savior”). The expression Jupiter Liberator is found on Neronian coins and in old calendars (CIL 1.2, 274; see Chapter IX). Valerius Maximus (2.6.8) reports that it was the custom to pour a libation from the poisoned cup to Mercury for a safe passage to the next world.

69 The issue of Seneca’s complicity in the plot is much disputed, and no resolution of the question is likely to be forthcoming. Given the poor security surrounding the conspiracy and the fact that Epicharis, possibly an associate of Seneca’s family, found out about it, it seems unlikely that Seneca could have been completely in the dark.

70 That such a saying was attributed to Flavus is probably not to be doubted. It presumably reflects the fatal lack of enthusiasm that the conspirators felt for Piso. It is, however, difficult to believe that Seneca himself was privy to some such arrangement. The Laus Pisonis (166) refers to Piso’s skill with the lyre, but he presumably did not play it in public. The Scholiast on Juvenal 5.109 refers to Piso performing in tragedies in costume (see the introductory section).

71 Dio’s account of Paulina’s experience strips it of the nobility of Tacitus’s version. Dio suggests that because Seneca predeceased her, Paulina simply changed her mind. Tacitus claims that Nero intervened to stop her bleeding.

72 Presumably, Scaevinus is urging Faenius to take the initiative and confess before he is accused.

73 The resentment over the murder of Nero’s mother, Agrippina, is perhaps surprising. She did not command the same general popularity as Octavia, but she was apparently held in high regard by the praetorian guard. It is to be noted that there is no reference to the fate of Britannicus.

74 Sulpicius’s words clearly became proverbial, since they are reflected both in Suetonius, who attributes them generally to the conspirators (Ner. 36.2), and in Dio. It seems that they are meant to be taken ironically, that Nero had committed such atrocities that only by murdering him could Sulpicius relieve him of the great burden of guilt. The sentiment does not sound right in the mouth of a centurion, unless he was a particularly philosophical one.

75 The other centurions are presumably Maximus Scaurus and Ventus Paulus.

76 By “ills” he means Nero’s shortcomings.

77 Both Tacitus and Dio attribute this rather unmilitary sentiment to the centurion Sulpicius Asper. Suetonius suggests that it was a notion expressed by several others.

78 The words supposedly uttered by Subrius Flavus (Flavius in Dio) reflect those found in Tacitus. On several occasions, Tacitus notes Subrius’s aversion to Nero as a performer but suggests that he felt that same contempt for Piso and intended to get rid of Piso after the coup and replace him with Seneca.

79 The comments about Vestinus being innocent of the conspiracy are consistent with what was said about him earlier (Tac. Ann. 15.52.3). Suetonius (Ner. 35.1) records that Nero killed Vestinus, but he says nothing about his being suspected of involvement in the plot, only that Nero wanted to marry Statilia. On Statilia Messalina, see Chapter VII.

80 Tacitus here stresses Vestinus’s innocence of the charges, since Nero had no evidence that would have merited a trial, even a trial held in camera by the emperor, where the outcome might well have been determined in advance.

81 The poem (carmen) here probably refers to part of a poem. The reference may be to Lucan, Bell. Civ. 3.635–46, describing a sea fight in which one of the participants, Lycidas, is wounded by a grappling iron and bleeds to death, supported by his friends.

82 It was the custom to decorate the house with laurel branches to mark public or private rejoicing. Juvenal (10.65–66) similarly describes sacrifices on the Capitol and wreathing the house with laurel, on that occasion to mark the fall of Sejanus.

83 The sycophantic response to Nero’s measures echoes the aftermath of the murder of Agrippina. Tacitus here lists no fewer than twenty-four victims.

84 The men listed were presumably tribunes of the praetorian guard, but no other information on them is available. Pompeius’s “vainglorious exit” might have been explained in the gap that seems to follow Pompeius’s name (only one element of it is given in the manuscript; all the other names have two elements). Nothing more is known about Novius Priscus. He may be identical with, or the father of, the Novius Priscus who held the consulship in AD 78 and was legate of Upper Germany in 82. Gallus may be the same Glitius Gallus who was the first husband of Vistilia, mother of Corbulo (Plin. HN 7.39). Gallus and Egnatia were exiled to Andros, where an inscription records them as patrons and benefactors (IG 12.5.757). They returned under Galba, and Gallus’s fortune was restored by Otho.

85 Rufrius Crispinus is attested as praetorian prefect in AD 47 (nothing is known of him before that), perhaps through friendship with Messalina. For his loyalty, the Senate bestowed on him the rank of praetor and 1.5 million sestertii. He was removed from his command in 51 at the urging of Agrippina but received the consular insignia (Tac. Ann. 11.1.3, 12.42.1). He was the first husband of Nero’s second wife, Poppaea. Exiled to Sardinia, he was obliged to commit suicide in AD 66.

86 Verginius Flavus was a noted teacher of rhetoric. He wrote a book on the complete system of rhetoric, which was much admired by Quintilian (Inst. 7.4.40).

87 Gaius Musonius Rufus, of Volsinii in Etruria, was an equestrian, born about AD 30. A famous Stoic, he enjoyed an enormous reputation in antiquity, and Philostratus viewed him as a new Socrates (Philostr. V.A 4.4–5). He was a teacher of the famous philosopher Epictetus while Epictetus was a slave of Nero’s freedman Epaphroditus (Epict. 1.9.29). Tacitus identifies Musonius as a teacher of Rubellius Plautus, who was murdered by Nero (Ann. 14.59.1), and it seems that Musonius followed him into exile. If so, he must have returned to Rome upon Rubellius’s death. He was banished to Gyarus (Philostr. V.A. 7.16.2) but had returned by AD 69 and was much involved in the political life of the time. He tried to reconcile the conquering Flavian armies with the forces of Vitellius, but his proposals provoked only derision or boredom (Tac. Hist. 3.81.1). He escaped the general banishment of philosophers under Vespasian in 71 (Dio 65.13) but was later exiled, to be recalled by Titus after Vespasian’s death (Jer. Chron. 79). He was a friend of Pliny the Younger (Ep. 3.11.5).

88 “Philosophical teaching” refers to Stoicism, a school that was founded in the third century BC and took its name from the Painted Stoa (arcade) in Athens. The system had considerable influence over the literate Roman upper classes, who were much attracted in particular to its philosophical tenets, especially the validation of virtue as the true good in life and the only source of true happiness. Stoics figure largely among the vocal opponents of the later Julio-Claudians, and this has led to suggestions that a “Stoic opposition” developed and was particularly prominent under Nero. But it is far from clear that Stoic dogma formed the basis for opposition. Stoic elevation of the virtuous life might in some sense preclude a public or political life, and Nero’s suspicions of his kinsman and potential rival Rubellius Plautius were supposedly exacerbated by the thought that he “ostentatiously aped the Romans of old, even adopting the arrogant teachings of the Stoics which made men mutinous and ambitious” (Tac. Ann. 14.57.3). But much Stoic writing suggests that an accommodation could be made, and Seneca certainly taught in De Clementia that monarchy was not incompatible with Stoicism. In De Beneficiis, he claims that the best political system is that under a just king (Ben. 2.20), and in a letter to Lucilius he refutes the assertion that those who are philosophical are contemptuous of kings and magistrates (Ep. 73.1). Despite Tacitus’s claim that Nero wanted to be rid of Thrasea because he represented virtue (Ann.16.21.1), the accusations lodged against him were not apparently provoked by his philosophical doctrines. He had contempt not for imperial rule but for Nero individually and personally as a ruler. It may well be that the type of person who was attracted to Stoicism was likely to have little respect for what might be perceived as an arbitrary martinet like Nero, and the demeanor of those attracted to virtue might have seemed offensive to the emperor. It is interesting that Nero particularly despises Rubellius for “being austere in appearance, and moral and reclusive in his private life” (Tac. Ann. 14.22.1).

89 Caesennius Maximus was a philosopher and friend of Seneca (Sen. Ep. 87.2). Martial (7.44.6) refers to his consulship, and to his exile in Sicily, where his friend Ovidius followed him. In Sen. Ep. 87.2, he is just “Maximus,” and in Mart. 7.44.1 he is Maximus … Caesonius.

90 To put this figure in perspective, upon his accession, Nero paid out the same as Claudius, 15,000 sestertii to each (Tac. Ann. 12.69.2).

91 Tacitus (Ann. 1.17.4), in describing the charges made to legionaries at the time of Augustus’s death in AD 14, says nothing about a levy for rations, which might suggest that the legionaries were exempt at this time but that praetorians still had the price of their rations deducted from their pay. It is not clear whether Nero’s grant of free rations was established as a permanent measure or granted, like the donative, only as a one-time gift. Suetonius (Ner. 10.1) says that among the handouts at the outset of the reign there was a monthly allowance of cost-free grain for the praetorian cohorts, but he might have been speaking of a free ration for one month only (see Chapter I).

92 Petronius Turpilianus had been consul in AD 61 and was sent as legate to Britain in that year (see Ann. 14.29.1, 39.3). There is no indication of what his service to Nero was at this time. In 68, he was placed in command of the troops against the rebelling Gauls and Galba, but he did not leave Italy. He was put to death without trial by Galba.

93 Marcus Cocceius Nerva is the future emperor (AD 96–98), born on November 8, probably in AD 30 (Dio 68.4.2), into a distinguished family. His grandfather was a close friend of Tiberius, and his father was an eminent lawyer. Nerva had an extraordinary early career. To judge from his rewards on this occasion, he was a close confidant of Nero (he was praised by Nero as the Tibullus of the age [Mart. 8.70.7–8]), even though he had not held major office). His collaborationist role did him no apparent harm, and he was consul in 71 as Vespasian’s colleague, and again in 90 as Domitian’s. He was chosen as emperor upon the latter’s death. It seems remarkable that Tacitus feels circumscribed and unable to provide details for the service provided by Nerva, who is here coupled with the notorious Tigellinus. His contribution must have been substantial.

94 Nymphidius Sabinus was the son of Nymphidia, a freedwoman of Callistus, one of the most powerful freedmen in the courts of Caligula and Claudius. Despite Nymphidius’s claim to a Caligulan heritage, Plutarch (Galb. 9.1) says that Caligula was a boy when Nymphidius was born and that the latter’s father was actually a gladiator, Martianus. Nymphidius gained the status of equestrian, perhaps thanks to Callistus, and was prefect of an auxiliary unit in Pannonia (ILS 1322). It was probably at the time of the Pisonian conspiracy that he was appointed praetorian prefect alongside Tigellinus. His sense of loyalty was not profound. In 68, he promised the praetorians an enormous donative to abandon Nero and support Galba, but then sought to have them proclaim Nymphidius himself as emperor and was killed by Galba’s soldiers (Plut. Galb. 8.1, 14–15).

95 It is assumed that there is a gap in the manuscript at the end of this chapter, since a section on Nymphidius’s life and career would be expected here.

96 The trials had not been conducted in open court before the Senate but in camera before the emperor in the Servilian Gardens. Hence, Nero feels the need to present the evidence and provide proof that there had in fact been a conspiracy. It is possible that Tacitus had obtained testimony directly from those who returned to Rome under the Flavians, which may account in some part for the wealth of detail that he provides, despite the secrecy of the proceedings.

97 Junius Gallio was the older brother of Seneca, who dedicated his De Ira and De Vita Beata to him. Born Annaeus Novatus, he was adopted by Junius Gallio, a friend of his father, Seneca the Elder. The older Junius was expelled from the Senate in AD 32 for his obsequiousness, exiled to Lesbos, and then put under house arrest upon his return (Tac. Ann. 6.3.3). The younger Junius entered the Senate possibly under Caligula, and after a praetorship was proconsul of Achaea in in 51/52, when he refused to listen to the charges of the Jews against Paul (Acts 18.12–16). He was favored by Nero. He was consul in 55 (Plin. HN 31.62) and was the herald who introduced Nero onto the stage in 59 (Dio 61.20.1). He was forced into suicide in 66 according to Jerome’s Chronicle. His accuser Clemens is otherwise unknown.

98 Tertullian (De spect. 1.8) says that the Circus is especially consecrated to the Sun.

99 April, the month when the conspiracy was exposed, was renamed Neroneus (Suet. Ner. 55). There was a precedent for this. Quinctilis (the birth month of Julius Caesar) and Sextilis (the month of Augustus’s first consulate) were renamed July and Augustus, respectively, under Augustus, and under Caligula September was renamed Germanicus, which did not last any more than did Drusilleios (named after his sister Drusilla) in Egypt. We learn later that May was also renamed Claudius and June Germanicus (Tac. Ann. 16.12.2).

100 Tacitus’s words are rather cryptic here and are complicated by our uncertainty about the location of the Temple of Salus, where Scaevinus first took down the dagger (see Ann. 15.53.2). If Tacitus means that the original temple was to be demolished and another more splendid one erected in its place, or even one on a similar scale but untainted by Scaevinus, he has neglected to make this clear.

101 Nero had a precedent for the dedication of the dagger in the Capitol. After the exposure of the conspiracy of AD 39, Caligula dedicated three daggers in the Temple of Mars Ultor (Suet. Cal. 24.3). Later, Vitellius will send to Cologne the dagger with which Otho killed himself, to be dedicated to Mars (Suet. Vit. 10.3).

102 On Vindex, see Chapter X. The name Vindex means “avenger.”

103 Dio (59.29.5) speaks of Anicius Cerialis, who was put to death with his stepson Sextus Papinius in AD 40 and died courageously, revealing nothing about the conspiracy. Tacitus (Ann. 16.17.6), by contrast, says that Cerialis committed suicide in AD 66, his conscience troubled by the fact that he had revealed the conspiracy to Caligula. He held a suffect consulship in that year, AD 65 (CIL IV.2551).

104 The proposal that a temple be erected to the Divine Nero in Rome was remarkable. Temples to the deified emperors are known outside of Rome, and even there they were normally linked with “Rome,” “the Senate,” or the like. A temple was dedicated to Claudius at Colchester during his lifetime, and the strangeness of this is alluded to in the Apocolocyntis (8.3). The unusual nature of Cerialis’s motion may well explain why Tacitus goes to such great lengths to insist that he found this in the acta senatus, Tacitus’s only specific citation from this source (otherwise mentioned only by Suetonius [Aug. 5]).

105 Tacitus (Ann.15.71.4) suggests that Musonius Rufus, the celebrated Stoic philosopher, was exiled (along with Verginius Flavus) purely as a result of Nero’s artistic jealousy. Dio here suggests that Musonius had made some criticism of the obsequious response of the Senate to Nero’s activities.

106 The comet recorded here is presumably the one mentioned by Tacitus just before the Pisonian conspiracy, which he places at the end of the year (Ann. 15.47.1). Chinese records note a “guest star” that appeared on May 3 of that year for seventy-five days. A “guest star” might be a comet, but it is more usually a nova or a variable star. Pliny (HN 2.92) notes a “fierce and almost continuous” comet that appeared under Nero; his description is reminiscent of Suetonius’s “number of nights in succession.”

107 Balbillus was a famous astrologer of the Julio-Claudian period, author of a work that enabled the astrological calculation of life spans. His biography is very difficult to disentangle. He may be identical with Tiberius Claudius Balbillus, prefect of Egypt in AD 55–59, a man admired by Seneca (QNat. 4.2.13) for his fine literary talents.

108 Suetonius’s notice of the Pisonian conspiracy is very brief compared with Tacitus’s detailed narrative, but in compensation he is the only literary source to allude to the conspiracy of Annius Vinicianus in 66, perhaps explained by the loss of the last books of Tacitus’s Annals (although it is similarly not mentioned by Dio). This conspiracy may be alluded to in the Arval record on June 20, and once on an earlier date in AD 66, with celebrations for something like the “exposure of plots of evil-doers,” although the text is very fragmentary (see Smallwood 25.3, 20–21). The leader seems to have been Annius Vinicianus. His father, of the same name, had been a primary participant in the conspiracy against Caligula and in AD 42 had put his support behind the rebellion of Furius Camillus, the legate of Dalmatia. He committed suicide after its failure (Dio 60.15.3). The son was appointed legate of a legion under Corbulo, who was his father-in-law, in AD 63/64 (Tac. Ann. 15.28.3). We know that Corbulo sent Vinicianus to Rome in AD 65 to accompany Tiridates (Dio 62.23.6), which would place him on the spot at the appropriate time for the later conspiracy. The failure of that conspiracy might well be connected with the death in 67 of Corbulo, who was summoned to Greece and ordered to commit suicide. It might also be connected with the similar summons and suicide of the brothers Scribonius Proculus and Scribonius Rufus, legates of Upper and Lower Germany, respectively (Dio 62.17.2–3). It is to be noted that Vinicianus’s brother, Annius Pollio, was a victim of the aftermath of the Pisonian conspiracy.

109 It is possible that the plan was to assassinate Nero as he passed through Beneventum on the way to Greece.

110 Suetonius’s comment about the “children of the condemned” is clearly an exaggeration. Even Calpurnius Piso Galerianus, son of the nominal leader of the conspiracy, survived, and we are not told that he suffered at all under Nero. He later tried to live a quiet life, not being a man of daring ambition, but was quietly put to death in 69 by Lucius Mucianus because there were rumors that he was plotting a rebellion, rumors based on nothing more than his handsome appearance and his parentage (Tac. Hist. 4.11.2).

111 One of the most famous of Nero’s victims was Petronius, almost certainly the Petronius who wrote Rome’s oldest surviving novel, the Satyricon, an anarchic tale of self-indulgence peopled by grotesque and satirical caricatures (sadly, it survives only in fragments). Petronius is an individual with an enduring appeal, inspiring, as one example of many, Macaulay’s characterization of Horace Walpole: “No minister in his time did so much; yet no minister had so much leisure.”

Virtually nothing is known about Petronius’s life, but it is now generally assumed that he is to be identified with the consul of AD 62, Petronius Niger. He may well be the Titus Petronius identified by Plutarch as one whose wit consisted in berating someone for failings the opposite to what they in reality manifested, such as mocking a spendthrift for being miserly (Plut., De adulatore et amico 60d–e). Pliny relates that when he knew he was going to die, Titus Petronius destroyed his wine dipper, worth 300,000 sestertii, so that Nero could not inherit it (Plin. HN 37.20). The praenomen of Publius, however, seems to have been confirmed in an inscription (SEG 39 [1989], 1180.35). As Tacitus reveals, Petronius held a governorship of Bithynia, which would have followed his praetorship. In office, it seems that he put aside his frivolous persona and became a conscientious administrator. He clearly became a key member of Nero’s inner circle, and such was his polished wit that he became Nero’s arbiter elegantiae (“arbiter of good taste”).

112 The Romans regarded the night-owl person with moral suspicion, as Seneca (Ep. 122.2) reveals.

113 It seems that Nero had gone to one of his villas in Campania and was accompanied by Petronius as far as Cumae, at which point the arrest took place. That sequence is rather strange; one wonders why they could not have waited until the final destination, and it may be that Petronius had set out later to join Nero and been intercepted at Cumae by a detachment of the guard.

114 Instead of a pompous farewell speech, Petronius wrote dirty stories about Nero, which some have identified with the Satyricon, but that work would surely have been too long, and in any case he is said to have provided explicit names of Nero’s lovers, not found in the Satyricon (although admittedly much of it is lost).

115 In breaking his signet ring, Petronius may well have thought of the forged letter of Lucan that was produced after the latter’s death.

116 Publius Clodius Thrasea Paetus was a native of Patavium (Padua). He married Arria, the daughter of Caecina Paetus, who rebelled against Claudius in AD 42, and the elder Arria (discussed later). Thrasea was consul in 56 and gained a reputation in the Senate for his principled stands. Even Nero grudgingly gave credit to Thrasea’s qualities as judge (Plut. Prae. Ger. Reip. 14), and Vitellius is said to have regarded him as a model of proper conduct (Tac. Hist. 2.91.3).

In 59, Thrasea left the Senate chamber, when it passed obsequious resolutions following the murder of Agrippina (Tac. Ann. 14.12.1). He opposed the death penalty of the praetor Antistius on a charge of writing defamatory verses and won over the Senate, despite Nero’s disagreement (Tac. Ann. 14.48.3–49). He was eventually viewed as hostile by Nero and was not allowed to join other senators in conveying congratulations to the emperor on the birth of his daughter (Tac. Ann. 15.23.4). Ultimately, Thrasea was condemned by the Senate, and the extant Annals break off during the account of his suicide (Tac. Ann. 16.35.2). He wrote a biography of Cato recorded by Plutarch (Cat. Min. 25.1, 37.1). His neglect of the Iuvenalia, noted here, is not mentioned elsewhere.

117 Quintus Marcius Barea Soranus was consul in AD 52. As consul designate, he had moved that Pallas, the freedman favored by Agrippina, be honored by the grant of the ornamenta praetoria and fifteen million sestertii (Tac. Ann. 12.53.2). He was proconsul of Asia in 61/62. His son-in-law, Annius Pollio, had already been exiled for his role in the Piso conspiracy.

118 The reference to the “Cetastian” Games is reconstructed from the totally garbled text of the manuscript; the Trojan Antenor was the traditional founder of Padua.

119 Tacitus does not mention the apotheosis in his account of Poppaea’s funeral (Ann. 16.6), but she is identified as a Diva (goddess) on Neronian coinage and inscriptions, and Dio (63.26.3) mentions that Nero consecrated a temple to her.

120 Cossutianus Capito was a senator from at least AD 47. In 57, he was sentenced by the Senate for extortion in his province, perhaps Lycia-Pamphylia, although no mention is made of his playing any role in the prosecution of Thrasea (Tac. Ann. 16.33.2).

121 The oath to maintain the acts of the princeps was taken in January 1 of each year.

122 Prayers for the well-being of the state were made on January 1, and, under the republic, senators were fined for nonattendance. Enforcement, however, had become lax. It was restored by Augustus and Claudius. It appears that it had been allowed to lapse again under Nero.

123 The prosecutions were referred to earlier in this book. Lucius Junius Silanus was the last living relative of Augustus. He was brought down along with his uncle, the famous juror Gaius Cassius Longinus (Tac. Ann. 16.7.2). Lucius Antistius Vetus was brought down soon after (Tac. Ann. 16.10–11). He was Nero’s partner in the consulship in AD 55 and was the father-in-law of Rubellius Plautus.

124 The harbor of Ephesus was notoriously prone to silting up because of the mud deposits of the river Cayster.

125 Acratus was a freedman of Nero who, with Carrinas Secundus, collected works of art for the emperor in Achaea and Asia to adorn the Domus Aurea. It was said that only Rhodes was off-limits to him (Tac. Ann. 15.45.2; Dio Chrys. 31.149). Tacitus links Acratus’s work to the Great Fire (AD 64), which was later than Soranus’s governorship (61/62), and it must be assumed that his art plundering had simply intensified, rather than begun, after the disaster.

126 Tiridates journeyed from Parthia with a large retinue and met Nero in Naples, to be accompanied from there to Rome (see Chapters IV and IX). No irony need be intended. Tacitus’s reference is to the arbitrary behavior of an eastern king.

127 It was established practice for each consul to have attached to him one, and then from 38 BC two, quaestors (Dio 48.43.1). The consul presided over the trial; his quaestor would be the appropriate officer to communicate the verdict. The quaestor’s mission and presence at the house seem to have been conveyed to Domitius Caecilianus, one of Thrasea’s friends, otherwise unknown.

128 The Cynics in many ways were the precursors to the Stoics and had much in common with them. Demetrius was a friend of Seneca, who viewed him as the ideal learned sage. He was courageously outspoken in his opposition to Caligula, Nero, and Vespasian, who banished him (Suet. Vesp. 13; Dio 66.13.3). He did, however, defend Egnatius Celer, the accuser of Barea Soranus (Tac. Hist. 4.40.3).

129 Arria’s mother had volunteered to die along with her husband, Caecina Paetus, involved in the rebellion of Scribonianus against Claudius in AD 42. When Paetus hesitated, she stabbed herself, so Pliny and Martial record, and said: Paete, non dolet (“It does not hurt, Paetus”), which became a byword for courage (Plin. Ep. 3.16.6; Mart. 1.13). The younger Arria lived and later, under Domitian, went into exile along with her daughter, both returning under Nerva. She was the mother of Fannia, who married Helvidius Priscus (Plin. Ep. 7.19) (discussed later).

130 Helvidius Priscus, the son of a centurion, came from Cluviae in Samnium (modern Casoli). He entered the Senate sometime before AD 49. He may be the Helvidius who commanded a legion in Syria in 51 (see Chapter IV). He married Fannia, the daughter of Thrasea. He was plebeian tribune in 56 but held no further office under Nero, presumably because of his connection with Thrasea. After the latter’s death, Helvidius was exiled, returned under Galba, and held a praetorship in 70. He continued to argue for the independence of the Senate and was exiled and eventually executed under Vespasian. At Fannia’s request, a life of Helvidius was written by Herennius Senecio (a Stoic philosopher of the time of Domitian), who was executed in AD 93, in part because of his authorship of that work (Tac. Dial. 5; Hist. 4.5–6; Suet. Vesp. 15; Plin. Ep. 7.19; Dio 66.12, 67.13.2).

131 It is not clear whether these words were addressed to the quaestor (the minimum age was twenty-five) or Helvidius. The latter, however, seems to have been a plebeian tribune ten years earlier (Tac. Ann. 13.28.3), and he must now have been at least thirty-seven.

132 The text of the Annals breaks off at this point.

133 Tacitus also identifies Soranus’s friend Egnatius Celer, born in Berytus (Beirut), as the chief accuser (Ann. 16.32.2).

134 Nothing further is known of Asclepiodotus of Nicaea.

135 Tacitus and Dio were probably drawing on the same ultimate source here, to judge from the reference to Thrasea’s performances in the tragedy in his hometown and to the oath to Jupiter Liberator as he died (see Chapter IX).