Milichus too was distracted that night. Encouraged by his wife to reveal any danger to the emperor in the hope of receiving a reward, and tormented by the possibility that he would miss the opportunity to be the first to reveal the danger, Milichus sneaked out of the house the next day to report his suspicions to Nero. At first he was ignored by the gatekeepers, but eventually his perseverance prevailed. Accompanied by one of Nero’s freedmen, Epaphroditus, he finally won an audience with the emperor.
Immediately Scaevinus was arrested and brought to the palace. Here he faced Tigellinus. The senator, a picture of calmness and ease, denied all the allegations; the dagger, he said, was a family heirloom that this ungrateful, dishonest ex-slave had stolen. And the will? Well, came the reply, I have often added new clauses and freed slaves to stave off my creditors. These responses undermined Milichus’s evidence and gave the advantage to Scaevinus. The official investigation of treason had been transformed into a scene of social awkwardness and embarrassment. But just as the whole sorry business was winding down and Scaevinus was preparing to leave, Milichus spoke up one last time. He had one last suspicion to voice. He had seen Scaevinus, he said, talk at length with the knight Antonius Natalis.
Scenting blood, Tigellinus agreed to see if Scaevinus’s and Natalis’s stories matched up. The knight was promptly arrested and brought to the palace. The two men were interrogated separately and their stories immediately differed. To get at the truth Tigellinus now exchanged the nicety of questioning for the sharper tool of torture. And sure enough, in a short space of time, he learnt a great deal. With only the slightest threat of pain, Natalis broke down first – in Nero’s presence. He denounced Piso, but then, in his panic, he also blurted out the name of another: Seneca. Tigellinus quickly went to the other interrogation room and confronted Scaevinus with Natalis’s confession. Defeated, the senator duly named the others involved. The discovery of such a widespread plot cut straight to the source of Nero’s insecurity: after all his magnanimous generosity, and after all he had given the senators, was this how they showed their gratitude to him?
The notion that Nero’s regime was becoming anything other than tyrannical was abandoned in the terror that now followed. The walls of Rome and its neighbouring towns were overrun with the military and blockaded; everywhere there were signs of a state of emergency. Each and every one on the confession list faced Nero’s wrath. Tigellinus’s soldiers rounded up as many as possible and chained them outside the gates of Nero’s palace. Although most at first refused to confess, every one eventually gave way either to torture or the bribe of immunity. In the process, they incriminated their associates and even members of their own families. Trials, such as they were, were informal; people were incriminated on the flimsiest of evidence. In Nero’s campaign of terror an association with a known conspirator, ‘or a chance conversation or meeting, or entrance to a party or a show together’ was tantamount to guilt.28
No one, however, had yet denounced the joint head of the Praetorian Guard, Faenius Rufus. To conceal his involvement in the plot from Tigellinus and Nero, he bullied, tortured and interrogated more viciously than the others. During one violent ‘trial’, a Praetorian officer who had also not been detected, surreptitiously flashed Rufus a glance; he was looking for a sign that he should go ahead and assassinate Nero. But as the officer prepared to draw his sword, Rufus lost his nerve and stopped him. With that last opportunity abandoned, the dying embers of the conspiracy were put out.
Meanwhile, Nero’s bloody purge of the aristocracy grew in ferocity. During the early stages of the exposure of the plot, Piso had been encouraged to go to the Praetorian camp, to go to the Forum, to go everywhere he could and rally the soldiers and the people against the emperor. But he had decided against it. Instead, he committed suicide by opening his veins before Tigellinus’s soldiers could get to him. The spectacular collapse of the conspiracy was symbolized by Piso’s wilclass="underline" in order to protect his wife from the emperor’s vengeance, it flattered Nero. Seneca, however, was not so quick to give in.
Nero’s tutor had wanted no part in the conspiracy; Natalis had only informed against him because he wanted to please Nero. Although retired, Seneca was a thorn in the emperor’s conscience, and Natalis knew that Nero had secretly long wished to be rid of him. Natalis’s cowardly attempt to avoid death by ingratiating himself with the emperor worked, and Nero seized his opportunity to silence Seneca for ever. When the guards arrived and surrounded his house, the old senator was at dinner. With nothing to hide, Seneca stated his innocence with dignity. The commanding officer, Gavius Silvanus, reported this back to Nero. Seneca’s former pupil, however, chose to ignore the small matter of his tutor’s innocence, and sent the officer back to the countryside with a death sentence.
Silvanus, however, was bearing a terrible secret: he himself had been one of the conspirators. Now he found himself perpetuating the crimes that he had joined the conspiracy to avenge. He could not bear to give the order directly, so he sent in one of his subordinates. Like Piso and many others, Seneca too chose to commit suicide by opening his veins. He began by severing those in his sinewy arms. When this failed to work fast enough, he cut the veins in his ankles and behind his knees. Seneca’s wife Paulina insisted on dying with her husband, and she had done the same. But, Seneca, fearing that the sight of each other would only weaken their resolve and intensify the agony, asked her to move to another room. Nero had anticipated this marital pact and in a final act of vindictiveness – or was it clemency? – had ordered his soldiers to prevent the death of Seneca’s wife. Paulina was resuscitated, her wounds bandaged, and she survived, a living ghost in mourning.
Inevitably, Rufus was betrayed by his co-conspirators; there were simply too many who wanted to see him exposed for his role in their downfall, not least the imprisoned senator Scaevinus. When, during an interrogation, Rufus pressed the senator for more information, he pushed Scaevinus too far. The leader of the plot retorted coldly, ‘Ask yourself. No one is better informed than you.’29 Rufus’s stunned silence betrayed his guilt and he was seized. Tigellinus perhaps took most pleasure in seeing his colleague’s career come to an abrupt end.
Aided by Nymphidius Sabinus and the fawning senator Petronius Turpilianus, both loyal allies of the emperor, Tigellinus mopped up the remaining conspirators among the Praetorian Guards and the Senate. To ensure the future loyalty of the Praetorians, Nero gave each soldier a reward of 2000 sesterces and a free supply of corn. Honorary triumphs were awarded to Turpilianus and Tigellinus, while Sabinus received a consulship and promotion to succeed Rufus as joint head of the Praetorian Guard. Finally, there was the usual round of congratulations, celebrations and thank offerings to the gods led by Nero. Cowed, the Senate slavishly joined in the ceremony.
With the state secure and the emperor pre-eminent once more, Nero showed a modicum of balance and restraint by pardoning Natalis for his confession and sparing others. However, his progress towards overt tyranny now took a step forward when he declared that he wanted to fulfil the greatest ambition of his entire life. To act. In public. In Rome.
DOWNFALL
In the colonnades of the streets of Rome, in the houses and baths of leading statesmen, the whispering ran rife. The senators were now desperately trying to avert a new crisis. The lowly profession of acting, utterly scorned by the conservative élite of Roman society, was about to be embraced in all earnestness by the emperor of Rome, the most powerful man in the world. The venue? The theatre of Pompey the Great. The occasion? The second Neronia. In the republic and during the early days of the empire, leading magistrates had hosted games as a way of asserting their family prestige and winning influence in the state. Now Nero was asserting his primacy by paying for the Neronia, the greatest games of the age, himself. All Roman citizens from Italy and the provinces were invited, and the humiliation and discrediting of the emperor, went the rumour, would be total.