The chic taste-makers of the fashionable set disagreed. Music, theatre, singing and performing in the Greek style were exquisite, the height of sophistication, the pinnacle of civilization. In ancient Greece aristocrats and citizens had competed to win honours and social status through artistic contests; those contests had been glorified in the works of Homer and Pindar, the founders of epic and lyric literature. So why not in Rome too? To their absolute delight, the hip crowd now at last had a patron. As chance would have it, he was none other than the emperor himself – and he was prepared to lead from the front. In AD 59 Nero celebrated a set of games called the Juvenalia, held to mark the first shaving of his beard and his transition to manhood. They were private games for the government élite, so when the emperor chose to play his lyre on stage, his advisers had been able to pretend it was acceptable. Burrus, who was forced to lead a battalion of the Praetorian Guard on to the stage, grieved as he applauded. The next year, however, Nero really pushed the boundaries of what was proper for the emperor of Rome. He was determined to take his passions to the people.
He first set up a training school for the Greek arts, then asked the sons of the aristocracy to attend it, and later encouraged its graduates to perform in public in a brand new festival of his very own creation. All of Rome was invited. For these games, aristocrats joined professional Greek performers on stage in ballet, athletics and musical contests. To the conservatives of the élite it was a national scandal. The sons of ancient, great, virtuous families, ‘the Furii, the Horatii, the Fabii, the Porcii, the Valerii’, were being forced to dishonour themselves!15 Nero’s view of his novelty games, however, was quite different. He was seeking to lay the foundations of a new age, beginning at year zero. He was civilizing Rome, re-educating the public, weaning them off barbaric gladiatorial games and reorientating the grand sweep of Roman history away from war, conquest and empire towards the more refined ideals of Art. He named the games the Neronia, and decreed that they were to be held every five years. This was how he wanted to lead his people! This was how he wanted to be a good emperor!
The public loved the games. If Seneca and Burrus despaired, they could at least console themselves that, despite the rapturous reception, the emperor had restrained himself from performing before the Roman people – at least for now. By AD 62 Nero showed no sign of outgrowing his Greek habits, his new vision for Rome. This was the year in which he opened his grand Hellenistic gymnasium complex and extravagantly handed out free oil to senators and knights so that they might set an example to ordinary people to take up the very un-Roman, unmanly activities of wrestling and athletics. Seneca and Burrus were fighting a losing battle. The previously harmonious relationship between Nero and his advisers was at breaking point. Two events made it snap.
When a senator by the name of Antistius Sosianus wrote some verses satirizing the emperor and read them out at a high-society dinner party, he was tried for treason and found guilty. Although he narrowly avoided execution, his case spelt the return of the treason law that had so discredited the regimes of Caligula and Claudius. Under its vague terms, an individual could be charged with any form of ‘conspiracy’ against the emperor. To Seneca the law was a clear indication that his life’s project – to make Nero behave and act like a good emperor – was failing. The real impasse, however, for Burrus and Seneca came soon afterwards. Nero told them that he had decided, at last, to divorce Octavia, the daughter of the divine Claudius, and marry Poppaea. Seneca and Burrus were against it: Nero might well be descended from Augustus, but to divorce Octavia was to sever his principal tie with the deified Claudius, a cornerstone in his claim to be emperor. When Nero argued, stamped his feet and insisted, Burrus retorted succinctly, referring to the throne: ‘Well, then, give her back her dowry!’16 With that, the rupture was final.
Events now moved quickly. Burrus soon fell ill with a tumour and died. The rumour went around that Nero had speeded his death by instructing someone to poison him. What is certain is that the emperor wasted no time in replacing the critically important head of the Praetorian Guard. Nero realized that to make the divorce a reality, he did not need nay-sayers, nuisances and pests with ‘right’ on their side, people spoiling his fun and burdening his life with responsibility. He needed new friends. To this end he held a nervous meeting of the council of leading senators and palace advisers. Who on earth, they asked themselves, would Nero choose for the recently vacated post? The emperor was quick to reassure them. His first appointment was a person of integrity and experience – a man named Faenius Rufus. He was popular with the Praetorian officers and had a good track record in efficiently managing Rome’s corn supply without profiteering from it. The council breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, they were soon to be disappointed by the next appointment. Also taking his place as joint commander of the Praetorian Guard, declared Nero, was the emperor’s good friend Ofonius Tigellinus.
Tigellinus’s track record was, to say the least, a little unorthodox. While it was true that he had been prefect of the watch (the head of the fire service in Rome), his reputation rested on totally different credentials. He and the emperor had met during Nero’s childhood on the estate in Calabria belonging to Nero’s aunt. They took to each other instantly, perhaps because they shared a common interest in racing and breeding horses. More than this, however, Nero was fascinated by Tigellinus’s character, by his capacity for evil. He was good-looking, some fifteen years older than Nero, and, although from a poor Sicilian background, had friends in high places. He had insinuated himself into the houses of two aristocrats, where he had earned a reputation for depravity. It was said that he seduced first the men, then their wives, and in this way he rose into the echelons of Roman high society. Now, in the imperial house-hold’s rounds of orgies, revelries and drinking parties, Tigellinus was Nero’s most debauched partner, his trusted playmate, his devilish, amoral master of ceremonies.
The appointment spelt trouble for another reason. With it, a key principle in Seneca’s vision of what made a good emperor was sacrificed. To help him successfully administer the Roman empire, the first emperor, Augustus, had at least given the impression that he relied on independent-minded people from the upper orders. The aristocratic Seneca had maintained that tradition under Nero. He was able to be honest towards the emperor because he had nothing to fear from speaking his mind. His wealth and position in Roman society were not dictated by his status in the eyes of the emperor. The appointment of Tigellinus, however, was the clearest indication that Nero was now surrounding himself with servile cronies. Tigellinus was from an ordinary family and owed his place entirely to the emperor. The fear grew in Seneca that far from standing up to Nero, Tigellinus would slavishly tell him whatever he wanted to hear. He would certainly not advise him on what was right. But Tigellinus was not Seneca’s only fear. His greatest worry was for his own life.
The ascendant Tigellinus set to work. He knew how to play to Nero’s insecurities. He tormented him by saying that Seneca’s wealth and property stood as an insult to the pre-eminence of the emperor of Rome because it rivalled the imperial estate. Nero was duly piqued by envy. Time was running out for Seneca, but he was paralysed – caught in a distinctly unpleasant dilemma: he could either continue advising the emperor but risk offending him, or else compromise and go along with Nero’s whims and fancies. Neither course of action made an appetizing prospect. Eventually, he struck on a solution: he would graciously ask the emperor leave to retire. Seneca found Nero in the imperial palace. In his polished, charming way, he began by citing the example of the divine Augustus. The first emperor, he said, had allowed even his closest advisers leave to retire. Perhaps the emperor might consider granting him the same reward?