Claudius’s daughter Octavia drew still closer the ties which
connected him with the imperial house. Agrippina determined
to hasten the death of Claudius, and the absence, through illness,
of the emperor’s trusted freedman Narcissus, favoured her
schemes. On the 13th of October 54 Claudius died, poisoned, as
all our authorities declare, by her orders, and Nero was presented
to the soldiers on guard as their new sovereign. From the steps
of the palace he proceeded to the praetorian camp to receive
the salutations of the troops, and thence to the senate-house,
where he was promptly invested with all the honours, titles and
powers of emperor.[1]
Agrippina’s bold stroke had been completely successful. Only a few voices were raised for Britannicus; nor is there any doubt that Rome was prepared to welcome the new emperor with genuine enthusiasm. His prestige and his good qualities, carefully fostered by Seneca, made him popular, while his childish vanity, ungovernable selfishness and savage temper were as yet unsuspected. His first acts confirmed this favourable impression. He modestly declined the title of pater patriae; the memory of Claudius, and that of his own father Domitius were duly honoured. The senate listened with delight to his promises to rule according to the maxims of Augustus, and to avoid the errors which had rendered unpopular the rule of his predecessor, while his unfailing clemency, liberality and affability were the talk of Rome. Much no doubt of the credit of all this is due to Seneca and Burrus. Seneca had seen from the first that the real danger with Nero lay in the savage vehemence of his passions, and he made it his chief aim to stave off by every means in his power the dreaded outbreak. The policy of indulging his tastes and helping him to enjoy the sweets of popularity without the actual burdens of government succeeded for the time. During the first five years of his reign, the golden quinquennium Neronis, little occurred to damp the popular enthusiasm. Nero’s promises of constitutional moderation were amply fulfilled, and the senate found itself free to discuss and even to decide important administrative questions. Abuses were remedied, the provincials protected from oppression, and the burdens of taxation lightened. On the frontiers, thanks chiefly to Corbulo’s energy and skill, no disaster occurred serious enough to shake the general confidence, and even the murder of Britannicus seems to have been accepted as a necessary measure of self-defence. But Seneca’s fear lest Nero’s sleeping passions should once be roused were fully verified, and he seems to have seen all along where the danger lay, namely in Agrippina’s imperious temper and insatiable love of power. The success of Seneca’s own management of Nero largely depended on his being able gradually to emancipate the emperor from his mother’s control. During the first few months of Nero’s reign the chances of such an emancipation seemed remote, for he treated his mother with elaborate respect and consulted her on all affairs of state. In 55, however, Seneca found a powerful ally in Nero’s passion for the beautiful freedwoman Acte, a passion which he deliberately encouraged. Agrippina’s angry remonstrances served only to irritate Nero, and caresses equally failed. She then rashly tried intimidation and threatened to espouse the cause of Britannicus. Nero retaliated by poisoning Britannicus. Agrippina then tried to win over Nero’s neglected wife Octavia, and to form a party of her own. Nero dismissed her guards, and placed her in a sort of honourable confinement (Tac. Ann. xiii. 12-20). During nearly three years she disappears from the history, and with her retirement things again for the time went smoothly. In 58, however, fresh cause for anxiety appeared, when Nero was enslaved by Poppaea Sabina, a woman of a very different stamp from her predecessor. High-born, wealthy and accomplished, she was resolved to be Nero’s wife, and set herself to remove the obstacles which stood in her way. Her first object was the final ruin of Agrippina, and by rousing Nero’s jealousy and fear she induced him to seek her death, with the aid of a freedman Anicetus, praefect of the fleet of Misenum. Agrippina was invited to Baiae, and after an affectionate reception, was conducted on board a vessel so constructed as, at a given signal, to fall to pieces. But Agrippina saved herself by swimming, and wrote to her son, announcing her escape, and affecting entire ignorance of the plot. A body of soldiers under Anicetus then surrounded her villa, and murdered her in her own chamber. Nero was horrorstruck at the enormity of the crime and terrified at its possible consequences. But a six months’ residence in Campania, and the congratulations which poured in upon him from the neighbouring towns, where the report had been officially spread that Agrippina had fallen a victim to her treacherous designs upon the emperor, gradually restored his courage. In September 59 he re-entered Rome amid universal rejoicing. A prolonged carnival followed. Chariot races, musical and dramatic exhibitions, games in the Greek fashion rapidly succeeded each other. In all the emperor was a prominent figure, but these revels at least involved no bloodshed, and were civilized compared with the gladiatorial shows.
A far more serious result of the death of Agrippina was the growing influence over Nero of Poppaea and her friends. In 62 Burrus died, it was said by poison, and Seneca retired from the unequal contest. Their place was filled by Poppaea, and the infamous Tigellinus, whose sympathy with Nero’s sensual tastes had gained him the command of the praetorian guards in succession to Burrus. The haunting fear of conspiracy was skilfully used by them to direct Nero’s suspicions against possible opponents. Cornelius Sulla, who had been banished to Massilia in 58, was put to death on the ground that his residence in Gaul was likely to arouse disaffection in that province, and a similar charge proved fatal to Rubellius Plautus, who had for two years been living in retirement in Asia.[2] Nero’s taste for blood thus whetted, Octavia was divorced, banished to the island of Pandateria and barbarously murdered. Poppaea’s triumph was now complete. She was formally married to Nero; her head appeared on the coins side by side with his; and her statues were erected in the public places of Rome.
In the course of the year 61 Rome was startled by the news of a disaster in Britain. At the time of the Claudian invasion of Britain in A.D. 43 Prasutagus, the king of the Iceni, had concluded a treaty with Claudius, by which no doubt he recognized the suzerainty of Rome and was himself enrolled among “the allies and friends of the Roman people.” The alliance was of value to Claudius, for the territory of the Iceni (Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire) lay immediately north of the new province and its capital town Colchester, and Prasutagus had loyally kept faith with Rome. But in A.D. 61 he died. leaving no male heir. His kingdom therefore lapsed to Rome, and Prasutagus, anxious that the transfer should be effected in an orderly way, divided his accumulated wealth between his two daughters and the emperor. His plan failed, for the local Roman officials acted as though the kingdom had been conquered in war; they seized on the property of the late king and his chiefs and insulted his family. Fearing that worse might follow when the kingdom should be annexed, and encouraged by the absence of the legate and his legions, the Iceni, led by Prasutagus’s daughter Boudicca (Boadicea) rose in revolt and were joined by the Trinobantes in Essex, who had been long subject to Rome and had their own grievances to redress. Colchester, since A.D. 50 a Roman colony, was sacked. The ninth legion which had hurried from Lincoln was cut to pieces, and the insurgents prepared to march on London. The news of the outbreak found the legate Suetonius Paulinus engaged in attacking Anglesey. His resolution was at once taken. At the head of such light troops as he could collect, he marched in haste along the Watling Street, leaving orders for the legions to follow. Though the tribes along the road were rising, Suetonius succeeded in reaching London, only however to find himself too weak to hold it. He was obliged to fall back along the road by which he had come. London first, and then Verulam, were abandoned to the Britons. At last at some undefined point on the Watling Street his legions joined him. Thus reinforced he turned to face the enemy. The engagement was severe but the Roman victory was decisive, and Roman authority was restored throughout central and southern Britain.
The profound impression produced in Rome by the “British disaster” was confirmed two years later in A.D. 63 by the partial destruction of Pompeii by an earthquake, and the news of the evacuation of Armenia by the Roman legions. A far deeper and more lasting impression was produced by the great fire in Rome. The fire broke out on the night of the 18th of July, 64, among the wooden booths at the south-east end of the Circus Maximus. Thence in one direction it rapidly spread over the Palatine and
