The Death of Claudius and Nero’s Succession

 

In 53, Nero was 16 and ready to be introduced to public life.  He already could speak Greek as fluently as Latin and became an advocate for several Greek cities. Nero’s presentation of their cases in Rome provided an occasion to show off the rhetorical skills gained from Seneca’s tutelage (Ann. 12.5.8; Nero 7.2).  Soon after, Claudius fell ill which, according to Dio, afforded the opportunity for Agrippina to further boost Nero’s popularity by holding games (Dio (60.33.9) says horse racing; Suetonius says bear bating).  The illness brought home to Agrippina that her son was still in an uneasy position to succeed Claudius due to his age and experience.  To overcome this, she persuaded her husband to inform the Senate that Nero was capable of administering the empire (Nero 7.2; Dio 60.33.9-10). Another move to secure the throne for Nero was his marriage to Octavia in 53.  A problem arose since Nero had been adopted by Claudius it was technically incest for him to marry Octavia.  Because of the scandal surrounding Agrippina’s marriage to her uncle and the accusation aimed at Silanus to force him to give up his betrothal to Octavia the princess had to be adopted by another family (Ann. 12.58.1; Nero 7.2; Dio 60.33.2).

 

The timeliness of Claudius’ death predisposes us to believe he was murdered. Claudius had always been weak, was recently seriously ill and was 64 years old.  Ancient historians are in general agreement that Agrippina murdered Claudius. Josephus alone expressed reservations by using phrases such as "it was reported by some" (JA 20.8.1-2).  The diverse accounts of his death make it impossible to be sure of the facts. Tacitus says poison was administered by Claudius’ taster Halotus, traditionally in a dish of mushrooms.  However, this attempt failed and Claudius’ doctor put a poisoned feather down his throat, which proved fatal (Ann. 12.66.4-5).  Suetonius is undecided on who did the murder naming both Halotus and Agrippina  (Claud. 45.2).  Halotus suffered no stain on his reputation for his role in the murder and was rewarded with a procuratorship by Galba, but Locusta was executed (Galba 15.2).

 

During the morning of October 13, 54, the imperial palace was the scene of feverish activity. Claudius’ death was kept a secret while the Senate convened and priests spoke prayers for his recovery (Victor De Caes. 4.) His body was smothered in blankets to hinder rigor mortis and prevent a time of death being from being discovered. Agrippina issued bulletins, as Livia had following Augustus’ death, and prevented Britannicus and his sisters from seeing their father. While this was going on Nero was being prepared to become Claudius’ sole successor. Britannicus may have been Claudius’ rightful heir but Nero had become his legal heir and had been clearly marked out for the succession. Astrologers were summoned and after taking the auspices said that it was important to wait until noon, as that hour was most pleasing to the gods, before proclaiming Nero emperor.   The timing of events is probably the reason behind a remark in the Apocolocyntosis where October 13 is declared "the first of a highly auspicious age" (1,3; Ann. 12.68.3; Nero 8.1.)   Burrus had to ensure a loyal cohort of guards were on duty and Seneca busily prepared a speech for Nero to deliver before the Senate and the Guards.  Agrippina dispatched letters to provincial governors and client kings on the succession (Ann. 12.69.1; Nero 8.1; Apoc. 2; Dio 61.3.2; Oxyrhynchus 1021). 

 

The palace doors opened at midday to reveal the young Nero, a handsome and attractive young man (who would become seventeen years old in two months), with Burrus at his side.  The guards stationed at the foot of the stairs, leading to the palace, cheered and acclaimed the new emperor on cue.  Nero was taken by litter to the Praetorian camp at the Viminal Gate, some seven miles away.  One or two guards asked about Britannicus but this seems to have been a matter of curiosity since no further interest in Claudius’ son was shown.  Britannicus remained in the palace where he and Octavia were being consoled by Agrippina (Ann. 12.69.1-3; Nero 8; Dio 61.3.1).  At the Praetorian barracks, Nero delivered a splendid speech written by Seneca, brief and to the point, designed to gain the support of the guards, and they unhesitatingly acclaimed him imperator.  This may not be very surprising since Nero promised to pay the guards 15,000 to 20,000 HS per man, the sum that Claudius had offered thirteen years earlier (Claud. 9.4; JA 19.247; Dio 61.3.1).

 

Agrippina had encouraged cooperation with the Senate upon becoming empress, so Nero was taken directly to the Senate House from the Praetorian camp where he was eagerly welcomed.  The senators proceeded to pass several decrees that indicate Nero received his powers en bloc,  like his uncle Caligula (Ann. 12.69.5; Nero 8).  Although the Senate acclaimed him imperator Nero was forced to wait until his tribunican potestas was confirmed by the popular assembly with the passage of a law, a process not completed until December 4 (ILS 244).  Like Caligula and Claudius, Nero let some time pass before assuming the title pater patriae (Dio 60.3.2; 69.3.2; Nero 8). [1]  Nero returned to the palace late; the events must have been bewildering and exhilarating for the young man.  He was asked by an officer of the guard for the watchword and, without hesitating, responded with optima mater (best of mothers) (Ann. 13.2; Nero 9).  For Agrippina, the day had been a triumph.  She had accomplished some excellent political maneuvering in having her son acclaimed by both the Praetorians and the Senate on the same day, unlike Caligula who had a gap of several days between the military acclimation and the fulfilling of the constitutional role of the Senate.  But as had been the case when Caligula became emperor, the senators were euphoric, a reaction to the despised regime that had passed, when their emotions should have been tempered by experience.

 

Augustus’ will had been read at the initial meeting of the Senate with Tiberius and Macro had quickly published Tiberius’ will.  Expectation must have been great at the end of the meeting of the Senate for the reading of Claudius’ will but its contents would never be known (Ann. 1.8.1-3; Aug. 101; Dio 56.32 (Augustus) JA 18.234; Dio 59.1.2-3 (Tiberius)). It was a gamble on Agrippina’s part to suppress the document since the will could only be assumed to favor Britannicus and would fuel resentment among his supporters.  Claudius’ estate passed entirely to Nero because of his accession, as Caligula had inherited all of Tiberius’ property.  The will, in fact, may no longer have existed: Dio accused Nero of destroying the document (61.1.2).  The clear implication was that Britannicus was named as an heir in the will and possibly given a share in the empire.  Tacitus hints that there was a fear that the Senate would give precedence to Britannicus because he was named first in the will (Ann. 12.69.5; Claud. 44.1).  Later, when Nero later prosecuted people for tampering with wills there no doubt was some mirth over the emperor’s hypocrisy (Dio 61.7.6).  Although Claudius’ will was ignored the late emperor received a splendid funeral.  The magnificence was determined by Agrippina, who wished to equal the scale of the funeral accorded to Augustus by Livia (Ann. 12.69.4, 13.2.6, 3-4; Claud 45, Nero 9).

 

                                                           

The Golden Age

 

On the day after Claudius’ funeral, October 19, Nero delivered a speech before the Senate to set forth the tenants that would determine his administration of the state. He first asked that Claudius be made a god (Ann. 13.2.6, 3-4; Claud. 45, Nero 9).  Divinity for her dead husband was essential for Agrippina to formally sanction a regime of which she had been a vital part, and if accomplished she could expect the same honors at her death. Also, having Claudius deified would also be good propaganda for Nero since he could style himself as Divus Filius.  But Pliny the Younger says that Nero had Claudius deified in order to laugh at him (Pan. 11.1).

 

Having made a case for Claudius’ deification, Nero went on to note the support the Senate had  offered and said, as Caligula and Claudius had before him, that Augustus would be his model.  He went on to stress that he had no prejudices, no sense of injustice and he would not be vindictive (Ann. 13.4).  His policy would be a renunciation of the most detested policies of Claudius, in particular, the late emperor’s desire to judge legal cases that would normally have gone before other tribunals.  Nero also cut down the number of cases he heard to allow the consuls to hear them and more appeals in civil cases went to the Senate for determination (Ann. 13.4).  When Nero tried legal cases, he required the parties to make their case point by point, and had members of his consilium present.  After each side had presented their case, the consilium members would provide Nero written opinions for him to read, thereby allowing time for deliberation (Nero 15.1). [2]  The secret maiestas trials of Claudius’ reign were foresworn by Nero.  Senators would no longer be condemned in camera and would be guaranteed access to the Senate.  As a consequence, no maiestas trials are reported under Nero until 62, when the case of Antistus Sosianus, who had written some scurrilous verses about Nero and recited them at a dinner party, came before the Senate.

 

Nero promised that the emperor’s household would be free from bribery and improper influence.

Augustus and Tiberius had a staff of secretaries and assistants drawn from their freedmen but under Caligula freedmen like Callistus and Protogenes became powerful and feared.  Claudius went further and created a bureaucracy by assigning his freedmen state functions with large staffs; in effect, this created a central executive office of imperial administration.  Important decisions of state were in the hands of freedmen, thus increasing imperial control over senatorial officials.  However, the most serious breech of Nero’s accession speech promises before 62 was the excessive influence given to the imperial freedmen Polyclitus and Acratus; state affairs eventually were under the authority of Doryphorus, Polyclitus and Helius, who became hated and feared.  [3]

 

The speech ended with setting an equal division of responsibility between the emperor and the Senate (Ann. 13.4).  The elder members of the Senate probably recalled hearing the same language used by Claudius who had repudiated the harshness of Tiberius and Caligula in dealing with the Senate and promised to share power.  But Nero, as Tacitus admits, kept his promise and the Senate had greater latitude over affair than it had enjoyed for many years (Ann. 13.5.1).  The coinage of the period supplies evidence of Nero’s surrender of authority to the Senate. Precious metal issues for the first ten years of his reign carry the formula EX SC (ex senatus consulto) prominently on the reverse.  [4]

 

The good will of the Senate was also ensured by allowing the descendants of the Republican aristocracy to hold many of the ordinary consulships.  When the new consuls took the oath of office, they usually swore to uphold those acta of prior and the current emperor.  In 55, when Nero was about to hold his first consulship, he showed even greater respect for his colleague when he forbade the upholding of his own acta (Ann. 13.11).  Going hand and hand with this, Nero refused the offer of continuous consulships along with other extravagant honors (Ann. 13.41.4).  He also refused to allow gold and silver statues of himself and to have his birth month renamed in his honor (Ann. 13.10; Nero 8).  To celebrate their new harmony, the Senate voted that Nero’s speech be inscribed in gold and be read each year when the consuls took office. By contrast, Claudius’ speech of conciliation to the Senate had been engraved on a silver tablet (JA 19.246; Ann. 12.11; Dio 61.3.1). But the measures that were undertaken to cooperate with the Senate were not a favoring of older Republican traditions: all privileges still flowed from the emperor, whose power remained absolute.

  

 

                                               

Nocturnal Ramblings

 

Nero had a circle of friends among the privileged elite, the better known of the group being Otho.  Marcus Salvius Otho was reputed to be the worst scoundrel in Rome since Publius Clodius Pulcher, the brother of Catullus’ Lesbia.  Otho came from a respectable family but scandalized Rome with his nocturnal adventures, which involved organizing a group of friends to set out at night on the inky dark streets of Rome to rough up passersby. 

 

We are told that Otho had to pretend to be in love with a decrepit old freedwoman, who held an important post at the palace, in order to meet Nero.  But Nero may have met Otho during the family dinners to which Claudius invited the sons and daughters of the nobility (Claud. 32; Suet Otho 2.2; Ann 13.12.1).  Once introduced, they became close friends.  Nero admired Otho for his refined elegance and good looks, and he became the emperor’s model. Otho taught the young emperor the meaning of luxury.  At a dinner party, Nero produced an expensive bottle of perfume and sprinkled a few drops on Otho’s clothing, remarking as he did so on how recklessly he was wasting the scent.  The following day, Nero paid a return visit to Otho, and while his guests were seated at a banquet he caused the same expensive perform to be showered on everyone (Plut. Galba 19.3-4).  Once introduced into the smart set, Nero scorned the parsimonious attitude of Agrippina and his attitude caused her no little anxiety. 

 

Otho was probably responsible for Nero’s involvement in his nocturnal escapades.  The emperor would disguise himself and make the rounds of taverns and brothels with his companions.  Often enough, these adventures turned into brawls and in the scuffle Nero would receive blows for which his doctor concocted a balm that would remove all trace of the injury (Pliny NH 13.43).  However, during one of these adventures, Nero’s gang came upon Julius Montanus, a senator who was returning home with his wife.  When she was accosted by Nero, the senator defended her honor dealing Nero several well placed blows that the miracle balm could not cover.  Nero took his beating like a sportsman without further thought on the subject.  Montanus however, learned the identity of his opponent was none other than the emperor and sent a letter of apology.  The emperor was furious believing that Montanus knew all along who he was and made some threatening remarks in the heat of the moment.  When Montanus received word of what the emperor had said, despairing for his life, he committed suicide (Dio 61.9).  Following this incident, Nero took the precaution of taking along an escort of guards, and so long as the scuffle did not get out of hand they did not intervene (Ann. 13.25).

 

 

                                               

Power and Politics

 

The general view is that Nero was vicious and cruel from the start of his reign and the “Golden Age” was due to the good administration of Seneca and Burrus.  However, the direct involvement of the emperor in the affairs of state was unnecessary; decisions on important issues were made during the emperor's consilium. Tacitus and Dio agree that Seneca and Burrus exercised the dominant influence on the government during the initial years of Nero’s reign.  However, the authors differ over the character of the government: Dio says Seneca and Burrus enacted new legislation that won general approval (61.4.2), while Tacitus says the key principles of the government were those contained in Nero’s speech with the Senate (Ann. 13.4-5).  Suetonius placed emphasis on the role that clemency and generosity played in Nero’s reign, not the political role of Seneca and Burrus (Nero 10,7.1,35.5,52).

 

However, in 58, Nero demonstrated some administrative independence.  He suggested at a meeting of his council that indirect taxation be abolished throughout the empire.  The principle indirect taxes were import duties levied at various places in the empire.  What prompted this idea may have been the numerous complaints against tax collectors, but it was the kind of sweeping gesture that appealed to Nero, and seems to have been proposed without considering its consequences.  Another thought behind this move was with the elimination of a duty tax, trade would flourish thereby increasing the amount of revenue from direct taxation.  However, the risk was too great for the outright eliminate indirect taxation and Nero was eventually dissuaded. 

 

No mater how valuable Agrippina was to Nero, or how grateful he might be, it was inevitable that she would have to vacate her position of power and influence.  The debt Nero owed her was enormous but, being a 17-year old, gratitude was the least of his concerns.  Rather than seeking to limit her power, as befitted her new situation as dowager empress, Agrippina sought to exercise the same considerable diplomatic influence with the Senate and the same partnership of power with Nero that Claudius had allowed.  This was demonstrated when Nero received Armenian envoys early in his reign.  The emperor was seated on a dais and was in discussion with the ambassadors when Agrippina entered, approaching the dais with the intent of joining Nero, much as she had done during Claudius’ reign. Nero prevented her from joining him by rising and going forward to greet her. [5]  Nero was not as pliable as Claudius and Suetonius says his mother’s criticism and surveillance of his activities offended him. One of the problems Agrippina faced was Nero’s spendthrift nature, resembling that of Caligula.  Agrippina was frugal with money and thought she saw an opportunity to demonstrate Nero’s waste of money when he gave his freedman Doryphorus 10 million HS.  She had the money piled up before her son and when confronted by the spectacle of this vast sum Nero remarked that he had not realized the amount was so small and promptly doubled it! (Ann. 13.31.2-3, 51; Nero 10.1; Dio 61.5.3-4). Seneca was more astute at handling Nero by appealing to his vain nature with flattery.  In the Apocolocyntosis, Apollo compares the young Nero to himself as “similar to me in beauty and not inferior to me in voice and song” (Apoc. 4; Ann. 12.64.5; Nero 34.1).

 

Agrippina might have succeeded in sharing power with Nero had it not been for Seneca and Burrus.  Tacitus calls their collaboration a rare example of a successful partnership in power (Ann. 13.2.2).  This was not so much an actual sharing of power because each man had his own sphere of responsibility.  Burrus, as a military man, set the tone of gravitas expected in a Roman, and he would take a stand on an issue, refusing to compromise.  Seneca was at home in the political realm, although he did not appear at meetings of the Senate, preferring to work behind the scenes (Ann. 14.52.4, 54.1, 15.62.2).  The empress quickly found herself in an ironic situation.  She had rescued Seneca from exile, given him a role as Nero’s tutor, ensured that he received honors and secured Burrus’ appointment as Praetorian Prefect.  Now the men she had raised to power were forcing Agrippina to withdraw. Both men would have had some sympathy with her curbing of her son’s conduct but her quest to maintain her power drew their opposition.

 

Nero’s emancipation from his mother began with his love affair with a freedwoman named Acte (Ann. 13.12; Dio 61.7.1).  Otho probably encouraged the emperor into this affair and helped to arrange early meetings. Encouragement also came from Seneca and Burrus, even to the arranging of liaisons between the lovers (Ann. 13.13).  At one point, marriage was contemplated and Nero persuaded men of consular rank to swear that Acte was not only born free but of royal blood.  Agrippina reacted with fury over this breach of morality and her own loss of influence. Within a year of her son’s accession, Agrippina’s power had been broken.  Political participation by a woman was forbidden and Seneca and Burrus did not need to be loyal to her, nor could they afford it.  Agrippina continued to try to exert control over Nero, with the assistance of Pallas, but the new emperor was not about to be manipulated, and the freedman was dismissed from Court.  Agrippina’s fall from power is demonstrated in the coinage of the period.  On the earliest issues from Nero’s reign, her portrait faces Nero’s and Agrippina’s name and titles are on the obverse whereas Nero’s titles appear on the reverse.  Early in 55, the heads of Agrippina and Nero were shown jugate, with Nero’s being the more prominent and his titles on the obverse; by the end of the year Agrippina disappears from the imperial coinage.

 

 

                                               

The Death of Britannicus

 

Tacitus tells us that in her terror at loosing her hold over Nero Agrippina hinted that she would support Britannicus as Claudius’ true heir (Ann. 13.14).  The timing of this announcement was excellent: Britannicus would be 14 on February 13, 55, and could assume the toga virilis.  He had not been considered a threat, disinherited as he was, but there probably were many supporters of Claudius’ son who were opposed to Nero. Nero’s suspicions were raised so he allegedly decided to kill his brother (Ann.13.15). 

 

Early in 55, Nero learned that Locusta, from whom Agrippina had acquired the poison that killed Claudius, was imprisoned again.  He arranged with Julius Pollio, the tribune responsible for Locusta, to have her supply him with a poison for Britannicus.  Tradition has it that one of the prince’s tutors administered the poison but it proved harmless and Britannicus passed it in a bowel movement (Ann. 13.15; Nero 36).  Enraged, Nero threatened Pollio and had Locusta flogged.  He forced her to boil down the poison and administered it to a kid; it took five hours to die.  The mixture was boiled some more, then given to a pig that died instantly. 

 

Nero wanted to make the murder of Britannicus public and look like a natural death in order to avert suspicion.  Administering the poison was difficult since everything the prince ate or drank was sampled by his taster.  To circumvent this, Nero had a harmless drink offered to Britannicus.  His taster sipped it but the prince found the drink too hot and asked for some cold water to be added.  The poison had been added to the water.  At the first taste, Britannicus was deprived of speech and could not breathe.  He collapsed and Nero casually commented that his brother had had an epileptic fit and would recover.  Octavia and Agrippina showed no special concern (Ann. 13.16).  According to Dio, the corpse had darkened due to the effects of the poison (61.7.4).  Perhaps because of this disfigurement, a funeral was arranged in haste (Tacitus (Ann. 13.17) says it was that night, Suetonius (Nero 33.2) says the next day).  A pyre had already been built in the Campus Martius and the rites were carried out during a thunderstorm. Nero, fearing his crime would be detected, had gypsum applied to the face but when the rain fell on Britannicus, the gypsum washed off revealing the crime (Dio 61.7.4).  The next morning, Nero explained everything to Seneca and Burrus who received a special bounty paid out of the estate of the deceased prince.  Seneca presented a version of events to the Senate claiming Britannicus had suffered a fatal epileptic fit (Ann. 13.17).

 

Did Nero murder Britannicus?  The evidence provided by ancient sources does not tell the entire story. Britannicus was an epileptic and could have suffered a fatal seizure.  The darkening of his body indicates tetnoid epilepsy as the cause of death. Only strychnine, a poison not used by the ancients, will turn the face dark.  Another question is whether the poison was still strong enough, having been diluted with water, to cause instant death?  In his De Clementia (1.5), written after Britannicus’ death, Seneca says that Nero was unstained by the spilling of blood but he is supposed to have contradicted himself on his deathbed by numbering Britannicus among Nero’s victims.  Agrippina was unaware of any attempt to kill Britannicus and she is depicted in the Octavia (170-1) weeping over his body.  According to Dio, Seneca and Burrus were disturbed by Nero's action and lost all interest in the affairs of state, concentrating on their own survival  (Dio 61.7.5; Ann. 15.62.2).  Public opinion allowed the removal of Claudius’ son just as had been the case with Gemellus: a throne cannot be shared.

 

                                                           

Clemency

 

Seneca wrote his De Clementia during 55 and dedicated it to Nero. The treatise sets forth what he regarded as the qualities of a good ruler, also noting that the power of the emperor is absolute, subject only to his conscience. Clemency for the philosopher meant a synthesis of all the virtues of good government: justice, peace and goodwill.  Suetonius (Nero 10.1) mentions three virtues practiced by Nero: liberalitas, clementia and comitas (generosity, clemency and affability).  The latter quality refers to Nero’s affability that concealed his autocratic powers.  The author gave examples of this by recording that the emperor would greet men of all orders by name from memory and he was willing to appear in public.  When someone expressed gratitude to him he replied, “When I have deserved it” (Nero 10.2).

 

The new government appeared ready to question any tradition that was perceived as harsh.  In 61, L. Pedanius Secundus, the prefect of Rome, was killed by one of his slaves.  Under Roman law all of the slaves in the household, no matter if they lived at a country estate some distance from the scene of the crime, would be condemned to death as accomplices of the murder.  Secundus owned over 400 slaves, and such a harsh and archaic practice drew protest from the populace. The Senate debated the matter but in the end, tradition overruled good sense and the slaves were executed.

 

When did the “good” period of Nero’s reign end?  The so-called golden age has been assigned a term of five years but none of the ancient sources identify this period as a quinquennium.  Suetonius provides no dated incidents that indicate when the character of the government changed and divides his biography into bad and good sections (at Nero 19).  Even so, he mixes his examples of bad and good from different periods of Nero’s reign and generally paints the overall character of the times as bad.  Tacitus marks a clear turning point in 62, with the death of Burrus and first maiestas trial.  Seneca’s power was supposedly broken and Tigellinus, one of the new Praetorian Prefects, grew in influence and drew Nero into more crimes (Ann. 14.51.1, 52.1, 56.3, 57.1). Dio says that Nero had a natural inclination toward vice and indulged himself from the beginning; the murder of Agrippina in 59 removed all sense of right and wrong (61.4-5).  Tacitus, too, thought the death of Agrippina led Nero to plunge into the excesses his mother had tried to halt (14.13). When the Pisonian conspiracy was uncovered, Tacitus has Subrius Flavus name the death of his mother as the starting point of his hatred (15.67). 

 

                                               

 

 

© David A Wend 2003