» Nero as imperator. 1LS 233 (Luna) = GCN 149 = AN 287. PACE P. R. TERRA MARIQUE PARTA IANUM CLUSIT: Sutherland 1987 (в 358) ch. 39.
56 Liberation of Greece: ILS 8794 = GCN 64 = AN 127.
executed (in the very Senate-house, according to our sources) by Caligula in a.d. 40.
On his arrival in Greece Nero heard of the failure of Cestius Gallus, governor of Syria, to restore Roman control over Jerusalem in November 66. Gallus seems to have died soon after, and it was imperative for someone to be appointed quickly to take command in the full-scale war which needed to be fought for control over Judaea. In February 67 Nero appointed two men to replace Gallus, Mucianus as legate of Syria, and Vespasian to take command of the war itself; it is not surprising that the administrative problems involved in separating what had been a single provincial administration into two different commands should have caused friction between the two generals, and we do not have to suppose that there was any deep ill-feeling between the two. Their disagreements did not prevent Vespasian from pursuing the pacification of Galilee with general success during the years a.d. 67 and 68, as described in ch. 14b of this volume. By the time of Nero's death, when Vespasian ceased major operations in Palestine, there was little left for the Roman army to do apart from the recovery (and destruction) of Jerusalem itself and of a number of other forts whose reduction was more a matter of demonstrating Rome's might than of removing a serious threat.
By the winter of a.d. 67/8, it had become clear to Helius and the other members of the household who were looking after affairs in the capital that Nero's artistic victories in Greece had weakened, not strengthened, his position with the Roman elite. In January, Helius went to Greece in person (in spite of the dangerous winter weather) to persuade Nero that a return to Rome was imperative. As he travelled back to Rome via Naples, Nero's first concern was to be honoured as a Greek Olympic victor by driving his chariot through specially constructed gaps in the walls of the cities he passed on his journey to Rome via Naples. He showed much less concern when he heard that Gaius Iulius Vindex, legate of Gallia Lugdunensis, had thrown off his allegiance - news which reached him at Naples on the anniversary of his mother's murder.
CHAPTER 6 FROM NERO TO VESPASIAN
Т. E. J. WIEDEMANN
I. A.D. 68
In January 68, Nero had been persuaded by his freedman Helius to break off his successful and popular tour of Greece and return to Italy immediately. The fact that Helius braved the winter storms to cross the Adriatic confirms that he was deeply concerned about the possibility not just of a conspiracy among members of the Senate at Rome, but of a rising by one or more provincial governors with their armies. The evidence for this was a series of letters calling for Nero's overthrow circulated to other governors by C. Iulius Vindex, probably the legate of Gallia Lugdunensis. Some of the recipients passed the letters they received from Vindex on to Rome via local imperial procurators. But those who were administering the government on Nero's behalf cannot have been certain which governors if any were still to be trusted.
Imperial procurators in Tarraconensis, for instance, will have realized that the legate, Servius Sulpicius Galba, was taking no action to punish those who were circulating verses hostile to Nero. No one could tell whether Galba might not be similarly tolerant of those - perhaps the same people — who were plotting armed disloyalty.
The only direct evidence we have for assessing Vindex's reasons for rebelling, and his objectives, are the anti-Neronian writings he circulated, and the inscriptions on the coins he minted to pay his followers. Suetonius tells us that Vindex referred to Nero as 'Ahenobarbus', emphasizing that he had not been born a member of the domus Caesaris, and condemned him for his philhellenism: he was a charioteer and lyre- player with a weak voice. The coinage issues confirm that Vindex sought to represent himself as asserting traditional Roman values, protecting the Roman community against a tyrant. Legends on coins refer to the 'Salvation of the Human Race', showing the oak wreath bestowed on a Roman soldier for saving a fellow-citizen's life, together with the letters SPQR. There is an aureus with Mars the avenging war-god, and a pair of military standards described as belonging to the Roman people. There are denarii depicting 'Rome restored (to freedom)', and Hercules and Jupiter as liberators. Very similar coins were minted by Galba in Spain
z56
after he had thrown off his allegiance to Nero. The Spanish denarii refer to the 'Freedom' and to the 'Life-force of the Roman People', with images of Mars the avenger and a liberty-cap. Perhaps the most interesting issue shows personifications of Spain and Gaul with a Victory between them, and the legend 'Harmony of the Spanish and Gallic Provinces'; the reverse represents the 'Victory of the Roman People' driving in a two-horse chariot. The similarity between Vindex's issues and those of Galba indicates collusion between the two legates after they had withdrawn support from Nero, but it cannot prove that Galba was actively involved in Vindex's conspiracy from the beginning. Nor does the fact that both legates minted coins with inscriptions asserting republican virtues and referring to the 'Roman People' mean that Vindex or Galba rebelled against Nero in order to re-activate a form of republican constitution. That was not what 'The Liberty of the Roman People' meant to Vindex, whose ancestors had not even been citizens at the time of the Republic. He will have wanted to replace a failed princeps by a better one, and will have been well aware that he himself had no chance of attaining that position. On the other hand that does not mean that an assertion of loyalty to the SPJ2R was simply a cover for treason against the legitimate emperor; for there was a sense in which the SP^R were sovereign. They could not of course make one man more or less powerful than another; but they could recognise which man, and which group of supporters, had the most power and authority. What Vindex recognized was the right of the Senate and people to decide who it was who was actually in control — hoping, of course, that it would not be Nero, but someone else who had a claim to inherit the property and powers of the Caesars. An obvious candidate was Galba in Spain, whose name had already been mentioned as a claimant in a.d. 41.[427]
Vindex was not just a legate of Caesar; he was also a powerful man in Gaul in his own right. We are told that his ancestors had been 'kings' amongst the Aquitanians (ethnically, Basques, although the root *vent- is Celtic). We should not be surprised that Vindex made use of his local connexions; and we hear of Basque fighters volunteering to join Galba. Rivalry between different Gallic tribes, as well as between Gauls and communities of Italian settler origin with their traditional loyalty to the Ahenobarbi, will have played a role in determining who joined and who opposed Vindex. But there is no basis for the theory, popular earlier in this century, that Vindex's revolt was essentially a 'native' uprising against Roman rule. Tacitus follows the official Flavian interpretation of events in coupling Vindex with Civilis as though both were primarily native chieftains seeking to set up their own separate (but Romanized) states in north-west Europe. Like Civilis, Vindex will have exploited what opposition there was to Roman rule, aggravated by Nero's fiscal requirements; but it would be anachronistic to see him as a nationalist freedom-fighter rather than as a Roman senator reacting against Nero's 'tyranny'.