LVII. He died in the thirty-second year of his age, upon the same day on which
he had formerly put Octavia
to death; and the public joy was so great upon the occasion, that the common
people ran about the city with caps upon their heads. Some, however, were not
wanting, who for a long time decked his tomb with spring and summer flowers.
Sometimes they placed his image upon the rostra, dressed in robes of state; at
another, they published proclamations in his name, as if he were still alive,
and would shortly return to Rome, and take vengeance on all his enemies.
Vologesus, king of the Parthians, when he sent ambassadors to the senate to
renew his alliance with the Roman people, earnestly requested that due honour
should be paid to the memory of Nero; and, to conclude, when, twenty years
afterwards, at which time I was a young man, some person of obscure birth gave himself out for
Nero, that name secured him so favourable a reception from the Parthians,
that he was very zealously supported, and it was with much difficulty that they
were prevailed upon to give him up.
Here Ends the Life of Nero, from The Twelve Caesars
by Suetonius
NOTES.
/1/
The purification, and giving the name, took place, among the Romans, in the case
of boys, on the ninth, and of girls, on the tenth day. The customs of the
Judaical law were similar.
See Luke 2:21-22.
/2/
Seneca, the celebrated philosophical writer, had been released from exile in
Corsica, shortly before the death of Tiberius. He afterwards fell a sacrifice to
the jealousy and cruelty of his former pupil, Nero.
/3/
The baths of Nero stood to the west of the Pantheon. They were, probably,
incorporated with those afterwards constructed by Alexander Severus; but no
vestige of them remains. That the former were magnificent, we may infer from the
verses of Martial:
————Quid Nerone pejus?
Quid thermis melius Neronianis.—B. vii. ch. 34.
What worse than Nero?
What better than his baths?
/4/
Among the Romans, the time at which young men first shaved the beard was marked
with particular ceremony. It was usually in their twenty-first year, but the
period varied. Caligula (c. x.) first shaved at twenty; Augustus at
twenty-five.
/5/
The Sportulae were small wicker baskets, in which victuals or money were
carried. The word was in consequence applied to the public entertainments at
which food was distributed, or money given in lieu of it.
/6/
"Superstitionis novae et maleficae," are the words of Suetonius; the latter
conveying the idea of witchcraft or enchantment. Suidas relates that a certain
martyr cried out from his dungeon—"Ye have loaded me with fetters as a sorcerer
and profane person." Tacitus calls the Christian religion "a foreign and deadly
[Footnote exitiabilis: superstition," Annal. xiii. 32; Pliny, in his celebrated
letter to Trajan, "a depraved, wicked (or prava), and outrageous superstition."
Epist. x. 97.] Tacitus also describes the excruciating torments inflicted on the
Roman Christians by Nero. He says that they were subjected to the derision of
the people; dressed in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to be torn to
pieces by dogs in the public games, that they were crucified, or condemned to be
burnt; and at night-fall served in place of lamps to lighten the darkness,
Nero's own gardens being used for the spectacle. Annal. xv. 44. Traditions of
the church place the martyrdoms of SS. Peter and Paul at Rome, under the reign
of Nero. The legends are given by Ordericus Vitalis. See vol. i. of the edition
in the Antiq. Lib. pp. 206, etc., with the notes and reference to the apocryphal
works on which they are founded.
/7/
Claudius had received the submission of some of the British tribes. See c. xvii.
of his Life. In the reign of Nero, his general, Suetonius Paulinus, attacked
Mona or Anglesey, the chief seat of the Druids, and extirpated them with great
cruelty. The successes of Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, who inhabited
Derbyshire, were probably the cause of Nero's wishing to withdraw the legions;
she having reduced London, Colchester, and Verulam, and put to death seventy
thousand of the Romans and their British allies. She was, however, at length
defeated by Suetonius Paulinus, who was recalled for his severities. See Tacit.
Agric. xv. 1, xvi. 1; and Annal. xiv. 29.
/8/
Of the strange names given to the different modes of applauding in the theatre,
the first was derived from the humming of bees; the second from the rattling of
rain or hail on the roofs; and the third from the tinkling of porcelain vessels
when clashed together.
/9/
Canace was the daughter of an Etrurian king, whose incestuous intercourse with
her brother having been detected, in consequence of the cries of the infant of
which she was delivered, she killed herself. It was a joke at Rome, that some
one asking, when Nero was performing in Canace, what the emperor was doing; a
wag replied. "He is labouring in child-birth."
/10/
Acte was a slave who had been bought in Asia, whose beauty so captivated Nero
that he redeemed her, and became greatly attached to her. She is supposed to be
the concubine of Nero mentioned by St. Chrysostom, as having been converted by
St. Paul during his residence at Rome. The Apostle speaks of the "Saints in
Caesar's household." —Phil. 4:22.
/11/
Olim etiam, quoties lectica cum matre veheretur, libidinatum inceste, ac maculis
vestis proditum, affirmant.
/12/
Canusium, now Canosa, was a town in Apulia, near the mouth of the river Aufidus,
celebrated for its fine wool. It is mentioned by Pliny, and retained its
reputation for the manufacture in the middle ages, as we find in Ordericus
Vitalis.
/13/
A play upon the Greek word moros, signifying a fool, while the Latin morari,
from moror, means "to dwell," or "continue."
/14/
Seneca was accused of complicity in the conspiracy of Caius Piso. Tacitus
furnishes some interesting details of the circumstances under which the
philosopher calmly submitted to his fate, which was announced to him when at
supper with his friends, at his villa, near Rome.—Tacitus, b. xiv. xv.
/15/
This comet, as well as one which appeared the year in which Claudius died, is
described by Seneca, Natural. Quaest. VII. c. xvii. and xix. and by Pliny, II.
c. xxv.
/16/
This destructive fire occurred in the end of July, or the beginning of August,
A.D. 64. It was imputed to the Christians.
/17/
Neonymphon; alluding to Nero's unnatural nuptials with Sporus or Pythagoras.
/18/
The words on the ticket about the emperor's neck, are supposed, by a prosopopea,
to be spoken by him. The reply is Agrippina's, or the people's. It alludes to
the punishment due to him for his parricide. By the Roman law, a person who had
murdered a parent or any near relation, after being severely scourged, was sewed
up in a sack, with a dog, a cock, a viper, and an ape, and then thrown into the
sea, or a deep river.
/19/
Gallos, which signifies both cocks and Gauls.
/20/
Vindex, it need hardly be observed, was the name of the propraetor who had set
up the standard of rebellion in Gaul. The word also signifies an avenger of
wrongs, redresser of grievances; hence vindicate, vindictive, etc.
/21/
Decocta. Pliny informs us that Nero had the water he drank, boiled, to clear it
from impurities, and then cooled with ice.
/22/
Wood, to warm the water for washing the corpse, and for the funeral pile.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES.
Dr. Alexander Thomson,
Essay appended to Suetonius's Nero.