Luke, follower of Jesus Christ, friend of Antipas and Euphemos;
To Antipas, esteemed benefactor and patron of the people, and Euphemos, revered citizen and nobleman;
Greetings.
It has been my pleasure to welcome your servants Domnos and Kuseron into the house of Calpurnius. They spent a day here before beginning the second half of their journey to Miletus and have returned here on their way back to you. Because they have walked for eight continuous days since I last saw them, I insisted that they remain here for a day before undertaking the final leg back to Pergamum. Your gifts of provision are received with thanks. I will ensure that Calpurnius hears of your kindness.
I am convinced that the lack of water battles will not detract from the reputation of Rufinus’s Pergamene contests. After all, not everyone is as thrilled by the water battles as the emperor Domitian. His recent exploits with water battles have drawn further attention to his severe temperament, unlike that of his father, Vespasian [Flavian emperor 69–79 CE] and his brother Titus [Flavian emperor 79–81 CE]. You will know, no doubt, that he famously fashioned a lake out of dry land near the Tiber River and sponsored a water spectacle there. The report of that event has come to me from various sources. Evidently, after the battle commenced, the rains began to fall heavily, pounding down upon the spectators. The emperor covered himself and changed clothes to heavy woolen cloaks but forbade the people themselves to take any precautions against the rains. As a result, a number of local residents fell ill and later died. On this occasion, at least, the emperor revealed himself to be more concerned with promoting his own well-being than with the welfare of his subjects. The God that we Christians worship is known to have forsaken his own interests and well-being in order to serve the welfare of his worshipers. The society that he promotes is one that brings health and wholeness to all.
For this reason, although I am grateful for your concern about my own notoriety with regard to my association with Christians, I assure you that I find no dishonor in being a Christian. I am able to document the point more clearly in my two-volume monograph on Jesus of Nazareth and his followers, if you care to consult that work. The reputation of Christians as antisocial miscreants is undeserved and based on misinformation, as I seek to explain in that narrative.
Regarding the Christians’ involvement in the burning of Rome, although that was Emperor Nero’s official view, his version of events is not well founded. If blame is to be placed, many people, even senators in Rome, now suspect that the blame for the burning rests on one man alone: Emperor Nero [emperor 54–68 CE].2 This is impossible to verify, of course, and it is most likely that the fire simply started by accident. But if the fire was, in fact, started by Nero, such an action would not be out of character for him. A variety of sources indicate that Nero had been inclined to vice, especially in the later years of his reign when he was known to have indulged all his excesses. This was evident in his official dealings but also in his unofficial lifestyle—prowling disguised through the streets of Rome at night, indulging in sexual debauchery with women and boys, and picking fights with men. One incident reveals the extent to which he was willing to sacrifice the honor and life of others to protect himself. I have heard that one evening, while in disguise on the streets of Rome, he began a fight with Montanus, one of his senators whom he happened to find along the way. Montanus fought back but then made the fatal mistake of apologizing for his blows. This signaled to the emperor that Montanus had recognized him. With his own reputation at risk, Nero forced Montanus to commit suicide. In the aftermath, whenever Nero took to the streets in nighttime revelry, he took guardsmen with him so that they could finish the fights for him in a similar manner, thereby preventing the risk of being detected.
Perhaps you have heard how one of Nero’s own tribunes said to him, “I began to hate you after you murdered your mother and your wife, and became a charioteer, and an actor and an arsonist” [ed.: Subrius Flavus to Nero, 65 CE; see Tacitus, Annals 15.67]. The first three of these four charges can be shown to have validity, and possibly the fourth should fall into the same category. The first charge of murdering his mother and wife is not disputed. Having exercised considerable influence over Nero in the early years of his reign, his mother, Agrippina, later made the mistake of criticizing his mistress, Poppaea Sabina, and was promptly executed [59 CE]. Octavia, his wife, was the next to be executed, thereby permitting him to marry Poppaea.
The second charge of becoming a charioteer is likely a reference to the occasion when he crowned Tiridates as king of Armenia. During the ceremony of the crowning, Nero somewhat inappropriately took the opportunity to give a public performance on the lyre, after which he donned full charioteer regalia and drove a chariot around the arena while the crowds watched. Such unruly and undisciplined behavior was ignoble and ill-suited for one on whom the destiny of the empire depended.
The third charge of being an actor refers to his love of the arts, especially late in his reign. He is known, of course, to have plundered the great art treasures of Asia for his own palace [61 CE]. On one occasion he attended the Isthmian games in Corinth to recite his poetry and sing. He established an arts festival in Rome in his own honor. On the second occasion of this festival [65 CE], he took the stage himself. Although he gave a clearly second-rate performance, his senators thought it best to shower him with embarrassed praise, awarding him with crowns for singing and for oratory at the expense of the other competitors.
So the first three of Subrius Flavus’s charges against Nero can be substantiated. Consequently, the fourth charge, that he was an arsonist, may well be accurate also, if the fire was not simply accidental. And if Nero did have something to do with the fire, then Subrius Flavus’s third and fourth charges might be intricately connected. It was Nero’s aesthetic sensibilities that led him to announce his desire to rebuild Rome in a more artistically pleasing style, and it was this desire that would have resulted in his drunken burning of the city in order to allow for its rebuilding.
From what I have been able to reconstruct, the fire that devastated large portions of the city was no ordinary blaze. It lasted for six days [19–25 July 64 CE], followed by a brief hiatus, followed then by three further days of blaze. Three of the fourteen regions of Rome were completely leveled, and only four regions escaped without damage. The fire initially began near the Circus Maximus and spread north along the Palatine, destroying shops, homes, and temples in the very heart of the city. What increases suspicion about Nero’s culpability is that this was precisely the area he wanted to rebuild as a new city in his honor, to be called Neropolis. In the aftermath of the fire, the heart of the razed area was the place that Nero chose as the location for his “Golden House”—his extravagant imperial palace with its own man-made ornamental lake and a colossal statue of Nero himself.
After the fire, in view of the suspicion regarding imperial arson, Nero found a convenient scapegoat in the Christians. As punishment against them, Nero clothed some of the Christians in skins of wild animals and set dogs loose on them, which promptly tore them to pieces. Some were crucified as enemies of the state, and others were used as living torches to light his nighttime circus games. The communities of Christians in Rome were dealt a devastating blow, enduring torturous deaths with nobility out of loyalty to their savior, Jesus Christ, and never failing to stand firm for their way of life. I have had it reported to me that two of the greatest ambassadors of the Christian way of life, Peter of Capernaum (who appears in the two volumes of my monograph) and Paul of Tarsus (who appears in the second volume), were martyred in the senseless slaughter initiated by Nero. I knew both men personally, especially Paul, a Roman citizen with whom I traveled for some time. The character of these men was above reproach. But of them I would have much to say, and I have already gone on for too long in response to your query.
My point is simply that Nero’s charges against the Christians regarding the burning of Rome are almost certainly without foundation, and so too were the severe recriminations against them. In fact, in my monograph on Jesus the Galilean, I demonstrate that he is not one to stir up antisocial behavior within society. Indeed, he is one who brought health to society, redefining the codes of honor and instigating a way of life that replicates the values of the highest God of goodness. In the second volume, I am able to demonstrate that being a Christian does not conflict with being a responsible citizen, as long as the processes of the empire do not erode into chaos. No doubt you, as an honorable citizen and benefactor of the good, might be interested in studying the life of Jesus of Nazareth precisely to assess my argument for yourself.
I have received word that Calpurnius has stayed in Patara and is awaiting spring passage on a ship to Caesarea, as he had hoped. I had already sent word to him about some household matters and mentioned our continuing correspondence. He enjoined me to send you his sincere greetings, and he looks forward to familiarizing himself with the city that you have made your own. From there he will travel eastward to Jerusalem.
May the God of goodness go before you.3
1. The letter from Euphemos and Antipas to Luke begins as a typical letter of general recommendation, with Antipas’s own comments added to the bottom of the letter.
2. Suetonius (c. 66–122 CE) and Dio Cassius (c. 155–235 CE) both concluded that the fire was an act of wanton destruction by Nero (Suetonius, The Life of Nero 38; Dio Cassius, Roman History 62.16–18).
3. Speculative dates for this correspondence might be as follows: Domnos and Kuseron depart from Pergamum on the morning of 25 February carrying the letter from Euphemos and Antipas (see Antipas’s statement that Luke’s monograph has recently been received and my previous suggestion [see the third letter collection] that Stachys returned to Pergamum with that monograph on 23 February); Domnos and Kuseron arrive in Ephesus on the afternoon of 28 February, staying for one day; they depart for Miletus on the morning of 2 March, traveling there and back in eight days; they arrive in Ephesus on their return journey on 9 March, staying for one day; they leave Ephesus for Pergamum on the morning of 11 March, arriving in Pergamum on 14 March (cf. Antipas’s statement in his next letter [written around 11 March] that Domnos and Kuseron have not yet returned from their journey).