The desire to appear in public was not restricted to the political forum. Like other good emperors, Nero took seriously his duty to provide the Roman people with games. Unfortunately, he had an uncontrollable desire to be seen by the public as a performer himself, both on the stage and at the races. At first, Nero could be persuaded only to appear himself in contests held in the relative privacy of the imperial domus (for example, in the imperial hippodrome in the Vatican valley). The Juvenalia, held to celebrate Nero's achieving adulthood in a.d. 59, were still held in private, but senators and equestrians were expected to take part. In the quinquennial games which Nero held on Greek lines in a.d. 60 and 65, such inhibitions were laid aside; Nero thought that, like a Greek aristocrat, he would win fame and glory rather than opprobrium by performing in person on the lyre and in the hippodrome. In a Greek city, like Naples, he felt he was appreciated for his own personal qualities as a performer, rather than just for being emperor (though even here, he did not formally compete in public until a.d. 64).
Nero's personal tastes certainly affected the political scene when it came to his matrimonial affairs. Our sources suggest that his love for Poppaea Sabina (granddaughter of Tiberius' legate of Moesia) led to a complete rift with his mother. Later rumours suggested that Nero's relationship with Poppaea had existed several years before he divorced Octavia in order to marry her in 62. It was said that the emperor asked his friend Marcus Salvius Otho to marry Poppaea so that Nero could visit her secretly. Certainly there was a good political reason why Nero was unable to repudiate Octavia immediately: if he did so, then his claim to the loyalty of Claudius' supporters would be weakened in comparison with that of Antonia's husband Sulla Felix. This was seen by Agrippina, who is said to have advised her son against divorcing Octavia on the grounds that he would have to return her dowry — the empire. It is not inconceivable that the great crime for which Nero was to go down in history, the murder of his mother in a.d. 59, was the result of a personal conflict about whether or nor Octavia could be divorced; the fact that Seneca and Burrus seem not to have been involved in the initial plot to shipwreck a pleasure-boat on which Agrippina was returning home from dinner with her son suggests that this may not have been planned as an act of state. It may be that the original intention was not to kill Agrippina, but to frighten her so that she would not in future interfere with her son's wishes.
But in any case, once the shipwreck had been arranged by one of Nero's freedmen, Anicetus (who had been Nero's paedagogus), and Agrippina survived, Nero panicked; Agrippina threatened to publicize the incident, and that would have led to enormous unpopularity and perhaps Nero's replacement by another candidate who had Agrippina's support. The only answer now was a cover-up, and that meant the elimination of Agrippina. Nero consulted Seneca and Burrus, who apparently knew nothing of the plot. Burrus pointed out that the praetorian guard could not be expected to condone the killing of a member of the family they were sworn to protect. In the end they decided to claim that Agrippina had been detected conspiring to replace Nero - not an unlikely story - and she was executed.
Agrippina's killing may have brought an end to the quinquennium Neronis, but it made little difference to Nero's popularity. While Thrasea
Paetus walked out of the Senate in disgust, other senators accepted the explanation given by Nero and Seneca. But in future Nero needed the legitimacy conferred by his marriage to Octavia more than ever; we should not be surprised that there was a three-year hiatus between Agrippina's death and Nero's divorce of Octavia. Before that could happen, Nero needed to remove Sulla Felix; and also Rubellius Plautus (who seems not to have had the slightest ambition to become emperor). Sulla had been required to withdraw to Marseilles in 5 8. A comet in a.d. 60 led to rumours that a new princeps was at hand; Nero utilized the occasion to require Rubellius Plautus to go into exile in Asia. In the same year Servius Sulpicius Galba was sent to Hispania Tarraconensis as imperial legate; the fact that Nero left him there for the rest of his reign suggests that this too, was intended as a mechanism for removing a potential rival, though one who was now perhaps too old to require execution.
The same year also saw continuing success by Corbulo in the campaign to maintain Armenia as part of the Roman sphere of influence. After the installation of a pro-Roman king, Tigranes V, Corbulo was transferred to the governorship of Syria. Tigranes made the mistake of invading the Parthian dependent state of Adiabene in the following year, which not surprisingly resulted in a Parthian military response. It seems that Corbulo had to remove Tigranes from his throne, and in the year after that (62) an attempt by the new legate of Cappadocia, Caesennius Paetus, to reimpose Roman control resulted in the humiliation of his army by the Parthians at Rhandeia. In a.d. 63, Corbulo was given an unusual grant of imperium maius over the eastern provinces, with an additional legion from the Danube army. Both Romans and Parthians saw that a compromise was to their mutual advantage (both were becoming aware of the danger posed by recent migrations by the Alani from central Asia), and Corbulo negotiated an agreement whereby Armenia was to be ruled by the Parthian candidate Tiridates - who would be able to maintain order in the kingdom - but Rome's right to treat Armenia as part of its imperium was recognized in that he was to be formally granted his diadem by Nero at Rome as a gift of the Roman people. (Tiridates' visit took place in 66.) Although these military operations brought long-term peace to the eastern frontier, and glory to Nero, they were expensive.
So was the rebellion in Britain, brought about - at least in part - by the calling-in of debts of 40 million sesterces by the philosophical Seneca's procurators. A commission of three consulars was appointed to investigate the tax-collecting system in 62. Part of the results of this investigation is revealed in an inscribed dossier found at Ephesus, containing the accumulated regulations regarding the farming of the portoria of
Asia. The leges governing such tax-collection had the dual aim of restraining extortion by collectors and ensuring that the public treasury received its due. How far they commanded the respect of collectors is another matter. It is only too probable that the emperor and Senate were more concerned to secure revenue, whose chief destination was army pay, than to see that publicans acted more fairly towards provincials. The emphasis on avoiding abuses in tax-collecdon which can be found in a document issued in a.d. 68 on Galba's behalf by the prefect of Egypt, Tiberius Iulius Alexander, reflects the discontent of provincials throughout the empire at the exacdons of Nero's tax-collectors.[424]