Regina's History Notes

[Regina Minx]

How Rome Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love a Monarchy It's Totally Not a Monarchy Guys

The Roman Republic is a fascinating subject of study for the student of history. One of the biggest things you’ll learn if you trace the rise and fall of the Republic is just how virulently anti-monarchical the Romans were. From legend, this is a repudiation of the idea of absolute power in the hands of a single person after the Rape of Lucretia, which probably never happened any more than George Washington and his Cherry Tree, but as founding myths go, it does a wonderful job of telling the allegory of Roman hatred of monarchy. Even centuries later, the rumor that Tiberius Gracchus had asked for a crown was sufficient motivation to get the Senate to beat the man to death with chair legs. I’m not even kidding about that.

The student of Roman history also knows that the Republic eventually fell and gave way to the Caesars, who became Emperors and ruled with all the powers of all the absolute monarchs that we read about in human history. How did that happen? How did the Romans, who hated the notion of being ruled by a king so much that the rumor that one of their own had asked for a crown was sufficient to justify the murder of Tiberius, come to happily give Ceasar all the power of a king?

A better question might be how did Augustus manage to get the powers of the king without getting murdered? To answer that, a little bit about the governmental structure under the Republic must be understood. Under the Republic the highest magisterial post there was, the height of elected office, was consul. There were always two consuls, elected annual, and these two men were of equal rank and had veto power over one another, creating a check on any one man having total authority. Even though the consuls were democratically elected, the only Roman citizens that could vote for consul was the Centuriate Assembly, which represented the wealthy and powerful, and thus the consuls might not have the needs of the lower classes in mind when making decisions, so there was a further check on consular power.

That check was the Tribune of the Plebs. The Tribune was a magistrate elected by the Plebian Assembly, and the Triune could veto the action of any other magistrate which included the consuls.

What Augustus did was get himself elected Tribine of the Plebs (or technically he got the Plebian Assembly give him the power of the Tribune of the Plebs without giving him the office). Thus, he could tell the consuls what to do by threatening to veto anything they did if they didn’t fall in line. In addition to this, the Senate gave Augustus a lot of other offices that weren’t meant to be held by one person and generated an OP combo: he became eponymous consul and got imperium proconsulare maius too. By the way, that’s where the term ‘emperor’ comes from. Imperium is the Latin for force, or command, or military authority. An imperator is the holder of imperium, and Augustus had Greater Proconsular Authority by virtue of that decree. The authority of a permanent consul. So Augustus had proconsular authority which meant he had all the authority of the consuls to act on their behalf. But because he also had the powers of the Tribune, the people he was ostensibly acting on the behalf of couldn’t actually tell him what to do.

With these two offices, Tribune and greater proconsul, you get someone with total imperium inside and outside of Rome and all the provinces; an Emperor, in other words.

Pretty clever, right? It was all perfectly constitutional and within the rules of the Roman Republic. But totally not what Augustus’ Republican ancestors envisioned.

[Regina Minx]

We Didn’t Start the Fire
Or Maybe We Did
It’s Complicated

On the night of July 18th, AD 64 in shops near the Circus Maximus, a fire broke out. This was not the first time a fire had broken out in Rome, nor would it be the last time that it would succumb to a large disaster of this sort. Rome had an unplanned development, narrow streets, and lots of people living predominantly in wooden dwellings; the threat of fire was constant and serious.

The fire that started in 64 was particularly devastating to the city (3 of the city’s 14 regions were destroyed utterly, and only 4 escaped any damage) due to the hot, dry July winds. In panic, people poured into the narrow streets and were suffocated, crushed, or roasted alive in their flight. Some people, then as they still do today, took advantage of the chaos and confusion of the fire, and indulged in looting and theft. We don’t have a direct source to determine how many people died in the fire, but it would be reasonable to come to the conclusion of thousands or tens of thousands of dead and many more displaced and bankrupted.

When the fire broke out, Emperor Nero was not in Rome itself, but down the coast in Antium. He did not come back to the city immediately, but only when his city house on the Palatine Hill was threatened. When he was in the city, his behavior was excellent and exactly what you would want from a leader during a time of crisis. He opened public buildings and his own palace gardens to shelter and house the refugees, diverted grain shipments and ordered supplies to be sent up from Ostia, and lowered the price of grain by Imperial decree.

Still, the fire continued to burn, for six days before lulling and then reflaring for an additional three days. And it was at this point that rumors began to circulate. Men were seen wielding torches and, claiming some fort of official authorization to spread the flames. It was rumored that Nero had picked up his lyre and sung of the fall of Troy. Rumors that he had “fiddled while Rome burned,” as we think on it today, suggested that Nero saw the fire not as a cataclysm but as an opportunity and an inspiration, which in turn raised the possibility that he may have been to blame. These rumors, bolstered by Nero’s subsequent actions, had tremendous historical consequences.

In response to the loss of his palaces on the Palatine and Esquiline Hills, Nero built a new palace called the Domus Aurea, the “Golden House”). This palace was massive both in scale and in conception, and its construction deepened suspicions that Nero himself had started the great fire. The belief that the fire had been started deliberately became so prevalent that Nero was forced to point a finger away from himself. He singled out the strange eastern cultists called Christians.

Now why Christians made the perfect targets for blame for the fire is more than I want to get into at this point, since it involves understanding the socio-religious worldview prevalent in Classical Rome, and that’s more than I want to go into right now. I’m going to quote our ancient authors without elaboration. Tacitus, in introducing his educated, Roman reader to the Christian cult, describes it as “a malignancy, a baleful superstition that harbored hatred of the human race.”

When Nero pointed the finger of suspicion at Christians, he chose his scapegoat (if they were scapegoats, more later). They already appeared strange and suspicious, and in the face of a monumental tragedy, they only looked moreso. The emperor contrived brutal executions for those tried and convicted. In his private gardens, he had Christians draped in animal skins and torn to pieces by dogs. Or else he had them doused in pitch and set on fire to illuminate the garden parties. Tacitus insists that these punishments backfired; people came to suspect that the Christians were being butchered not in the interests of public justice, but to appease one man’s private savagery. In this way the Great Fire of Rome kicked off the persecution of Christians that was to go on in fits and starts for centuries. Exactly how extensive, pervasive, and sustained that persecution was is a matter of debate; I’m going to limit my thoughts just on Nero’s actions here.

The most intriguing question about the entire incident comes right back to the fire itself. Was the Great Fire an accident or a crime? Note that these possibilities are not mutually exclusive; the fire may have started accidentally and then have been aggravated by looters, arsonists, Nero’s agents, or even Christians. The timing of the fire is highly significant; July 18th commemorated the Battle of Allia in 390 BC in which the defat of a Roman army lead to the capture and burning of Rome. It was a highly significant day for the city to burn.

Let’s look at the case against Nero as being involved in the fire, either starting it or aggravating it after it had accidentally started. The case against him is entirely circumstantial, of course, but I will point out that the consensus of ancient historians is to reject it. The case against Nero rests on 7 key points:

• The preponderance of our sources report Nero’s guilt as a fact. Suetonius and Dio have no doubt that Nero was to blame for the fire. Only Tacitus is unsure, he says that some authors he consulted blamed Nero, and others did not. The majority of our surviving sources are certain on this point. But the extremely hostile nature of our surviving sources towards Nero should make us hesitate before we accept this at face value. Tacitus’ doubts should also make us hesitate; of the three historians I mentioned, he is by far the best and most cautious as a historian. His doubts matter.
• The emperor used the devastation wrought by the fire to build his Golden House. This suggests an almost bottomless selfishness and suggests a handy motive as to why he might have done it. However, that theory has a problem; if Nero wanted to clear space between the Esquiline and Palatine hills, it’s strange that the fire started in a different area of the city altogether.
• As we all know, Nero fiddled while Rome burned, displaying terrifying callousness and glee at the devastation caused and displaying his arsonist’s heart. That’s the theory, anyway. I would point out that our sources recount his fiddling in various manners. Tacitus reports a mere rumor that the emperor played the lyre in the palace and sang about the fall of Troy. Dio insists as a matter of fact that Nero dressed as a performer stood on the roof of the palace and sang about Troy, while Suetonius says that he stood atop the Tower of Maecenas in a different part of the city entirely, and did a full theatrical costume and recited a poem about the capture and Troy. The important thing to note is that our sources can’t agree on whether the fiddling was actual or rumored, whether Nero was dressed as an actor or musician, whether he sang or recited poetry, or whether he was in the palace, on stage, or on a tower. It all has the look and feel of gossip.
• When someone quoted the line from Euripides in Nero’s presence that ends “And when I die, let the world burn,” Nero is reported to have said, “No. While I live.” Thus revealing his arsonist’s dark heart. In addition, he used to express his hatred of Rome’s narrow streets and overall ugliness, and longed to rebuild Rome and rename it Neropolis, “Nero’s City.” This is hearsay yet again and ought to be no more persuasive than the third point. These stories could just as easily have been concocted after the fact.
• People claiming imperial authority were seen throwing torches into buildings and impeding firefighting efforts.When the fire started again after the lull, it was in the gardens of Tigellinus, Nero’s Praetorian prefect and partner in crime. This is a more compelling observation but still inconclusive. It should concern us, however, that unnamed and unidentified people claiming imperial authority in Tacitus morph into named and identifiable members of Nero’s Praetorian guard and personal chamberlains in Dio and Suetonius. The latter even adds the detail that siege engines were used to demolish buildings while the fire was going on. Anyone who knows anything about firefighting knows that firebreaks are tools used to prevent the spread of fire, and tearing down a stone building to build a wall in the middle of the street is exactly what you would do to stop the fire from spreading. The plain fact is that the existence, identity, and motives of any arsonists are not firm. They could have been freelancers taking advantage of the chaos to loot or indulge in their arsonist tendencies. Disasters do not always bring out the best in people.
• The last two pieces of evidence against Nero are the strongest, in my opinion. In 65, a  conspirator against Nero, a Praetorian officer named Subrius Flavus, when questioned by Nero as to why he had plotted against the emperor, Flavus said, and I quote, "I hated you, yet no soldier was more loyal to you while you deserved to be loved. I began to hate you when you became the murderer of your mother and your wife, a charioteer, an actor, and an arsonist.” Tacitus emphasizes that he is quoting the exact words of the man in the soldier’s own Latin. In other words, within 9 months of the fire, Nero is accused, in person, to his face, of being an arsonist by his own guard, a man who had been with him constantly for years. What did Flavus know that we don’t? Now, of course, you could argue that Flavus knew he was going to die anyway (he did), and just said nasty things to hurt Nero. It’s worth the response that everything else in Flavus’ litany of accusations is true.
• Finally, in the months before the fire, Nero twice prepared to leave Italy, but the plans were canceled. He then issued an edict saying that he would stay home to comfort his people in their misfortunes, though no misfortunes were yet evident.

Despite some compelling and interesting evidence, we can’t conclude with any high degree of certainty that Nero was responsible for the fire or exacerbated it afterward. But I want to look at another possibility.

The case against Nero is, at best, not proven. There is yet another possibility, however. Perhaps Nero was right. The Christians did it.

The strongest advocate for the case that Nero got it right was made by Gerhard Baudy. His case is very technical and complex, but comes down to a few key pieces of research. First, in the poor districts of Rome at the time of the fire Christians were circulating apocalyptic texts predicting that the city would be destroyed by a terrible inferno. Baudy claims that the Christians believed they were fulfilling divine prophesies and that the fire was part of a revolt to bring down the Roman Empire.

Consider these words. “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God Therefore whoever resists authority resists God..” These are the words of the apostle Paul, writing to the Christians in Rome, in the decade before the Great Fire. The significance here is that there were some people in the Christian community in Rome were advocating some sort of political resistance; Paul’s doctrinal letters that have survived were written in response to the questions and practices of the Christian communities he was writing to. The Galatians were questioning whether or not Paul had an earthly source for his Gospel, so he had to write to them to assure them that his only source was the revelations of Jesus. The Corinthians were factitious and divise, Paul wrote to urge unity and harmony. And in Rome, some Christians were advocating resistance of the government, so Paul wrote to tell them to stop.

In short, the possibility that a politicized group of apocalyptic Christians actually caused the great fire of A.D. 64 is very much a viable option. I trust that no one alive today needs to be reminded about the damage that a small group of religious fanatics can inflict on an urban population.

Ultimately the case against the Christians is ultimately as circumstantial as the case against Nero. We cannot know for sure, but only weigh the possibilities carefully. But that’s what makes ancient history so fun.

[Regina Minx]

Augustus' Succesion Issues,
Or,
Livia Killed Everyone

Augustus was the first and longest-reigning of the Emperors of Rome. From 27 BC to his death in 14 AD, a span of more than 40 years, he was the king of Rome in all but name, and that ‘all but name’ part was significant. He transformed the dying Republic into an Empire by assembling powers never before held by one man in the history of Rome since the death of the monarchy, and it was clear that Augustus intended his Empire to continue after his death, because he made considerable plans as to what was to happen to it after he died, and decided that the Principate was to be inherited.

Despite being one of the most influential men in history and an absolute political genius, the issue of the succession is one area in which I feel that Augustus did not live up to his own reputation because he managed to make a botch of it. Of course, we can’t be too hard on Augustus...he did reign for 40 years, and the Emperor had a habit of outliving the men he hand-picked to succeed him. When the dust settled, the man who settled into the considerable shoes left for him to fill was a man named Tiberius Claudius Nero, known to history as Emperor Tiberius.

Now, there is a simple, brute fact about the succession that has intrigued historians ever since. In order for Tiberius to succeed Augustus, an awful lot of people had to die. An awful lot of Augustus’ princes and princesses had to be exiled. And given that Tiberius was later reviled for being an awful tyrant and just the worst kind of person many people have looked back and suspected that Tiberius and Livia had a hand in all those dead successors, and all those exiled princes and princesses. To the point where Mike Duncan, host of the excellent Revolutions and History of Rome podcast has a simple name for this particular theory of history. Livia Did It.

Livia and Augustus met in 38 BC and their marriage was sanctified on January 14th of that year, less than 16 weeks after they had first met. It does seem in all historical accounts to have been a case of love at first sight, given the speed of their courtship and the trivial fact that both Augustus and Livia were both married when they met (Livia was even pregnant with her husband’s second son at the time!). Nevertheless, they divorced their respective spouses (Augustus was particularly cruel to his own wife at the time, taking their daughter Julia away from her while the woman was on the very birthing bed as he delivered his divorce decree to her) and married one another. From her previous marriage, Livia brought two sons, the aforementioned Tiberius and the son she was pregnant with when she met Augustus, Drusus Claudius Nero. These two boys came into Augustus’ house as stepsons. We will come back to Livia and Tiberius in short order. First, I want to focus on who Augustus first tapped to succeed him and how that failed.

When Augustus became Emperor with the defeat of Marc Anthony and Cleopatra, he celebrated a formal triumph. Technically it was given in celebration of the Dalmatian war (it would have been unseemly to lead a triumph celebrating the death of Romans, ater all). At Augustus’ side was the son of his sister Octavia, his 13-year old nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus. Four years later, Marcellus married Augustus’ daughter Julia, and was given political office and praetor-rank in assembly. Now it was clear that Augustus intended Marcellus to succeed him, and also shows the model of succession Augustus wanted to adopt for Imperial succession afterward; a family connection to himself and public indications of favor.

It wasn't as simple as just naming Marcellus heir, though. There was a man at Augustus' side since before he was Emperor; Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was his most crucial supporters. At the decisive naval battle of Actium, it was Agrippa that was in command. When Augustus wanted Rome transformed from a city of brick into one of marble and gold, Agrippa was his architect. The man was loyal to Augustus all of his life, and the issue of succession was confused by his presence and activities in Rome. In 23 BC, Augustus contracted an illness and nearly died. He summoned Agrippa to his bedside and gave him his signet ring. Augustus recovered from his illness and continued to favor Agrippa with office, titles, and responsibilities.

In the year 22, Marcellus died, and Agrippa was married to the widowed Julia, and between them, they had five children, direct descendants of Augustus. By 18 BC not only had the same proconsular power as Augustus but received tribunician power as well. From a legal perspective, Agrippa had the same offices and titles as Augustus, and you could even call him a co-emperor at this point. If anything had happened to Augustus between 18 and 12 BC, it’s fair to say that Agrippa would have succeeded Augustus. In 12 BC, however, Agrippa died of an illness. When we look at Marcellus and Agrippa, we see the evolution of Augustus’ plans for succession beyond “that guy’s my heir.” We see Augustus acting to grant second level princeps with a family connection to him and having his same powers, ready to step in if needed. In the year 12 BC, when Agrippa died, Augustus had four candidates to choose from for an heir. He had Agrippa’s two eldest sons, his grandsons, Gaius and Lucius Ceasar. Augustus adopted them both. He also had his two step-sons from his marriage to Livia; Tiberius and Drusus.

The moves Augustus made now are interesting and still the subject of much debate. I believe that Augustus created a pool of princes, from which he drew immediate successors (Marcellus, Agrippa, and Tiberius) and indicated his preferences for heirs to succeed them (Gaius and Lucius Caesar). Under this system, at any given time, there was an immediate successor and, behind him, a stable of viable candidates. Tiberius was made to divorce his own wife and mary Julia, who was now on her third husband. He received a consulship and grant of tribunician power over the next five years. His brother Drusus went through the same course of offices and powers, but he died in Germany in the year 9 BC. Then Tiberius almost went and wrecked it all. For no reason that we can identify even today, in the year 6 BC Tiberius walked away from it all. He went to the Greek island of Rhodes and seemed to retire from public life, doing no work in the state, commanding no armies, and doing nothing but enjoying himself.

This situation was not only personally embarrassing but also politically threatening for Augustus’ plans.  Gaius and Lucius Caesar were still too young to replace Tiberius, but Augustus decided to groom them for succession anyway. When they came of age, Augustus took up the consulship for the first time since abdicating it in 23 B.C. and, as consul, personally led them into the Forum, where they were hailed as “princes of the youth.” When Gaius was 19, he was given a command along the Danube, then granted proconsular power and sent east. In 1 AD, he became consul and was then sent east again. Lucius was designated consul for some future year. Things seemed to be back on track.

With Tiberius away in Rhodes, Julia took many lovers, as she had for most of her life, since her marriage to Agrippa, even. Augustus found out about her behavior and banished his daughter. Lucius Caesar died in 2 AD, and Gaius in 4 AD. Where he once had so many heirs to chose from, Augustus was now down to just one. Tiberius, who had come back to Rome as a private citizen. In 4 AD, Augustus adopted Tiberius, declaring, “This I do for reasons of state.” Ten years later, Tiberius became Emperor after Augustus died.

Going back to the Livia thesis...look how many people had to die or be ruined before Tiberius ascended to the throne in 14 AD. The deaths alone include Marcellus, Agrippa, Drusus, Lucius Caesar, and Gaius Caesar. The banished and disgraced included Augustus’ own daughter Livia, and his grandson Agrippa Posthumus. Before I consider the case against Livia in the four deaths she could reasonably have affected, I want to point out that the ‘Livia Did It’ theory is the explored of Robert Graves’ excellent book I, Claudius, and the BBC miniseries based on them. Livia is played there by Siân Phillips, an exquisite actress, and I recommend both the book and show.
,
Anyway Livia is linked with four alleged murders during Augustus’s lifetime and one after. The first four are Marcellus (23 BC), Lucius Caesar (2 AD), Gaius Caesar (4 AD), and Augustus himself  (14 AD.) Yes, there is a discussion about whether or not Livia killed the Emperor himself. The posthumous allegation links her to Agrippa Postumus’s murder, a few days after Augustus’s death. Marcellus died young and suddenly in the late summer of 23 B.C. Dio reports Livia’s alleged involvement but then immediately notes that the summer that year was particularly unhealthy. There is no reason to think of Marcellus’s death as anything other than natural. Livia’s involvement in the death of Lucius Caesar in 2 AD is insinuated by Tacitus, but this prince died of a sudden illness at Massilia in southern Gaul. Gaius Caesar died in Asia Minor of wounds sustained during a siege in Armenia. It is difficult to see how Livia at Rome could have orchestrated either of these deaths

The insinuation that Livia murdered Augustus is even more specious, given that the man was old at the time and was in poor health most of his life. In fact, the case against Livia in any untimely death seems most unlikely. Why is she suspected by so many of our sources? It seems to come down to four reasons, listed here in the order of their salaciousness. When Augustus became Emperor, smart money was not necessarily on Tiberius following after him, and it took a great many of untimely deaths to get him there. But this is circumstantial at best, not good reason for suspecting Livia. Another reason is Livia’s prominence. Roman male sentiment recoiled from such public prominence for women, and she undoubtedly became resented in certain quarters. The career of Tiberius himself also brings suspicion to Livia. He was a serious disappointment as an emperor. If the son was this bad, went the logic, he must have learned it from his mother.

We are left, however, with Agrippa Postumus, the son of Agrippa and Julia, brutally murdered on his island within days of Augustus’s death. Tiberius and Livia are indeed prime suspects in this killing: According to Tacitus, “The first crime of the new regime [Tiberius’s] was the slaughter of Agrippa Postumus….”, probably within a day or two of Augustus’ death. Tiberius denied having issued the order after it was reported to him that the deed was carried out, leaving historians to speculate ever since about whether or not the new Emperor was playacting. This was the view of Tacitus, who by framing the murder of Posthumus as only the first of many crimes against the new Emperor, narratively sets the stage for a bloody reign.

Which brings us back to Livia. No matter how he was exiled, Posthumus was the natural grandson and adopted son of Augustus. Adoption to a man with the name Caesar was a precedent for taking political power in Rome, and if we believe that Livia’s goal was to ensure Tiberius’ carried on for her husband, we can see how Posthumis would be a threat to that plan. Ultimately, we may have to conclude that we do not know for sure who killed Posthumus, whether it was Livia or Tiberius or a conspiracy of them both.

In the end, I have to reject the Graves hypothesis. I don’t think Livia killed anyone, much less them all. But still. Lot of Romans in Tiberius’ path to the throne, who didn’t even seem like he wanted the job in the first place. And yet, it wasn’t Marcellus or Agrippa or Gaius or Lucius or Posthumus that followed Augustus. It was the ugly stepson Tiberius. Makes you wonder...

[osmos]

What a wonderful and scholarly treatise, which I really enjoyed reading (I'm a very new Elliquist!) - thank you !! How much of the history is post facto propaganda , how much myth making and how much supported by contemporary reports I wonder? Doesn't really matter as the insights as to politics, succession and ambition are eternal themes!