The Great Fire of Rome: The Fall of the Emperor Nero and His City Read Online Free PDF

performing on the public stage. Such a thing had never before occurred. He was not alone in this concern. When, back at the Palatium, Nero informed his senior advisers of his intention, they expressed fears that it would demean the emperor and detract from his authority. He would not give up the idea entirely, but the advisers were able to convince him to at least make his first public singing appearances away from the capital.
     
    Public opinion was very important to Nero. He cared little for the ambitious, fickle, back-stabbing Roman nobility; his most intimate friends were almost entirely Equestrians and freedmen. The esteem of the ordinary people, on the other hand, mattered to him greatly. Suetonius said that Nero had “a thirst for popularity.” 7 It was not so much a thirst as a perceived need. At the commencement of his reign his sage adviser, Seneca, would have counseled him to heed the mood of the masses if he wanted to retain his throne.
     
    Augustus Caesar, Rome’s first emperor, had been a master of gauging the public mood and pandering to it. Unlike Julius Caesar, who, in his determination to eclipse Pompey the Great, had ostentatiously celebrated every victory, accepted every honor, and paid the ultimate bloody price for his egotism. Augustus had known the limits of his people’s tolerance and had died in his bed after a reign of almost half a century. His successor Tiberius, conscious of public opinion, had begun his reign with caution and restraint, but eventually lost touch with the man in the street and almost lost his throne to a usurper, Sejanus, as a result.
     
    The next emperor, Gaius, or Caligula as we know him, had at the outset of his reign been buoyed by public expectations, as the son of the wildly popular Germanicus Caesar. This had, ironically, made him oblivious to public opinion. Caligula soon perished, dispatched by his own bodyguards and unmourned by his people. Claudius, Caligula’s successor, had known how to keep the public amused and died popular because of it. To lose the goodwill of the people of Rome was a dangerous thing, and Nero was wise enough, or perhaps insecure enough, to know that an appearance by the emperor on stage at the capital before a public unprepared for such an unprecedented event could prove disastrous.
     
    Nero now decided that once the season for competitions had begun, he would enter the annual contest held at Neapolis, modern-day Naples, on the west coast of Italy. Neapolis had been founded by Greek settlers in about 600 BC, and despite being captured by Rome in 326 BC, it had always retained a Greek flavor. The Greeks were considered by the Romans to be the great artists of their time, in all the arts, and Nero felt that an artist such as himself should appear among the Greeks and win their praise, and their prizes. Only then would he feel confident enough to appear on stage in front of the people who mattered, the public of Rome.
     
    The idea of acclaim from the Greeks soon convinced Nero that after he made his debut at Neapolis, he would travel on to the province of Achaia, in southern Greece. There he would appear in all the major singing contests, which had been held for centuries, confident of “winning the well-known and sacred garlands of antiquity.” Having won the Greek contests, Nero was convinced, said Tacitus, he could return home and to the stages of the capital, having evoked “with increased fame, the enthusiasm of the citizens” of Rome. 8
     

II
     
    THE RIVAL PREFECTS
     
    T he Praetorian prefect Tigellinus stood in the Forum, looking approvingly at the bustle of early-morning activity around the shops of the Aemilian Basilica. If business for the shopkeepers of the Aemila this winter’s day was good, then that was good for Tigellinus. For, not only was Tigellinus one of the two prefects in charge of the Praetorian Cohorts. Tigellinus was also a man of business.
     
    The first emperor of Rome, Augustus, had resumed the ancient