Claudius' marriage to Agrippina greatly strengthened his position, and the last years of his reign were marred by far fewer executions and
44 Messallina: Meise 1969 (c 375) ch. 6; Ehrhardt 1978 (c 343).
plots than the first. The need to win military prestige was no longer so great, though much was made of the capture of the British king Caratacus, who was displayed at Rome. In the East, on the other hand, there were difficulties which continued at great financial expense into the next reign; the Parthian king Vologases I succeeded in imposing his brother Tiridates as king of Armenia. There continued to be food riots in the capital, but these were not now a serious threat.
The situation was stable because for the time being the succession was as clear as the imperial system could ever make it. Agrippina managed to have her own nominee Sextus Afranius Burrus appointed to command the praetorian cohorts; Burrus came from Narbonensis, where the Domitii Ahenobarbi had exercised patronage for generations. But Britannicus too had his supporters, including his grandmother, Domitia Lepida (also Nero's paternal aunt), and the ab epistulis Narcissus. Nero's position was strengthened by his marriage in 5 3 to Claudius' daughter Octavia (who formally had to be adopted into another domus to marry her father's adoptive son), and his appearance before the Senate on a number of occasions. Agrippina succeeded in having Domitia Lepida condemned for failing to keep the herdsmen on her great ranching estates in the south of Italy under proper control.
But Britannicus would be fourteen on 12 February 5 5, and old enough to be introduced to public life; there were rumours that Claudius said that he wished to be succeeded by a 'real' Caesar. That would have been fitting for one who had emulated Julius Caesar in being the patron of the people and of the army, effecting the spread of citizenship in the provinces, and making Britain part of the empire. Suetonius reports him as telling Britannicus to 'grow up quickly, so that he [Claudius] could explain all his actions'.47 On 13 October 54, Claudius suddenly died after eating mushrooms. The suspicion that Agrippina poisoned her husband is shared by all ancient sources (only Josephus calls it a 'rumour'). His death was most opportune for Agrippina and her son, and the fact that Narcissus happened to be away from the court for a short time seems too convenient to have been fortuitous.
V. NERO[423]
At the moment of Claudius' death, there was no question of any other candidate for the imperial office but Nero; he was his predecessor's adopted son and the husband of his predecessor's daughter (herself descended from Augustus' sister); he had been designated to hold a consulship when he reached the age of twenty (for a.d. 5 8), and he had been granted proconsular powers in Italy extra urbem. In a.d. 5 2 he had been appointed to the symbolic magistracy of praefectus urbi feriarum hatinarum causa. Had Claudius died even a few months later, he might have made a public wish to leave the empire to his natural-born son Britannicus; but the removal of Britannicus' grandmother Domitia Lepida, and the temporary absence of Narcissus, left Agrippina supreme in the palace, and the transfer of power was as straightforward as it had been in a.d. 14 or 37. The news of Claudius' death was kept secret for several hours, and then Burrus accompanied Nero to the camp of the praetorian guard where he was enthusiastically acclaimed. The promise of a donative of 15,000 sesterces to each soldier will have helped. Although Tacitus pretends that some soldiers asked where Britannicus was, Britannicus could not have shared the imperial office. He was still a child, as Tiberius Gemellus had been at Caligula's accession.
Nero went on to a meeting of the Senate, where he was recognized with the full imperial powers; he turned down, for the time being, the title pater patriae, since it seemed inappropriate to a youth of sixteen. It was not considered necessary, or sensible, for Claudius' will to be read and either approved, or set aside (Tacitus perversely suggests that had the will been read, Britannicus' plight might have received some sympathy precisely because he was not named as Claudius' successor).
Nero's speech at Claudius' funeral, as well as his speech to the Senate accepting the imperial powers and outlining his approach to the office that had been bestowed upon him, were both composed for him by his rhetoric teacher Seneca. Like Caligula and Claudius at their accessions, Nero promised a new start, and a return to the principles of Augustus. There would be no more secret trials within the emperor's cubiculum, and the Senate would be respected. That respect was made manifest by the appearance of the letters 'EX S. C.' on aurei and denarii between a.d. 54 and 64, to show that the use of gold and silver from the aerarium had been authorized by the Senate.
Seneca's treatise De Clementia, composed in a.d. 55, gives us some idea of how this adviser of Nero's thought that a Roman emperor should exercise power. That Seneca makes much of both the absoluteness, and the arbitrariness, of imperial power, does not indicate a belief that Roman republican ideals should give way to those of hellenistic (let alone so-called 'oriental') kingship. Rather, it simply makes explicit the fact that since the Battle of Actium there was only one man in the Roman world who was ultimately responsible for any decision affecting public life, and many decisions affecting the private lives both of members of his own household and of others who wished to participate in the political process. Seneca pointed out to Nero that while the gods' gift to him of uncontrolled power and unrivalled wealth was glorious indeed, it also implied the responsibility to behave in accordance with virtus; and clemency - essentially, restraint in the justified application of the emperor's power to punish those who had offended him - was a major imperial virtue.49
The success of Seneca and Burrus in persuading contemporaries that they were guiding the young emperor along the path of virtue has had a considerable effect on the historical tradition. Our sources agree that Nero's reign began well, and that it was only in the last few years that Nero alienated the elite to the extent of provoking conspiracy and ultimately open rebellion. The propaganda levelled against him by the rebels in a.d. 68 made much of his personality and cultural interests, in particular his philhellenism and his un-Roman desire to appear publicly as a performer. Opponents in the 60s had to explain why these character- traits had not provoked hostility from the start; and since antiquity did not allow much scope for the concept of character development, it was argued that Nero directed his self-indulgence towards other ends during the years when Seneca and Burrus were in a position to advise him. Burrus died and Seneca retired in 62; while they are characterized in a generally favourable way in the historical tradition, Burrus' successor as prefect of the praetorian guard, Ofonius Tigellinus, is presented as a wicked contrast to Burrus, and even (unconvincingly) as Seneca's enemy. Partly at least this was so that Nero's last years could be painted even blacker.
One consequence appears to be the development of a myth of the quinquennium Neronis; the idea that there was a period of five years during Nero's reign when the empire was well governed, and the relationship between Senate and princeps was as harmonious as it could ever be. Historians in Late Antiquity who found references to such a quinquennium in their sources were puzzled (since Nero ended up as a typical tyrant figure). They assumed that since Nero could not have exhibited such 'virtue' in his relations with the Senate (or with his own family), such praise must either refer to his public building programme, or to the traditional field in which a Roman displays his virtus, military conquests. Nero's building programmes were in fact remarkable. Although the reconstruction of Rome after the great fire of 64 resulted in considerable opposition, both because of its cost and because of the amount of land in the city which Nero reserved for his reconstructed palace (including the Golden House), even hosdle writers had to accept that some of Nero's