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Some Reflections on the ‘Quinquennium Neronis’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

F. A. Lepper
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Extract

Both Victor and the Epitomator, who are the only ancient authorities to mention the matter, clearly understood Trajan's alleged remark about Nero's quinquennium as a compliment: in which case it is very high praise indeed from an impressive quarter. Both also clearly understood the quinquennium as the first five years, when Nero was a mere youth. Consequently, when it became fashionable to rehabilitate the reputations of Roman emperors, historians of the reign of Nero, at any rate in England, seldom forbore to invoke the authority of Trajan for a favourable verdict on the administrative record of its opening years. They would then proceed to catalogue examples of good government, both at home and abroad, down to A.D. 59, or even to A.D. 62. In 1911, in the first volume of this Journal, J. G. C. Anderson, who later preceded Mr. Hugh Last in the Camden Chair at Oxford, made a sharp attack on this procedure, and suggested an entirely new interpretation of the quinquennium. Since then historians of Nero have been, with some exceptions, more guarded on the subject, partly because of Anderson's paper, and partly, no doubt, because the degeneration of emperors after virtuous beginnings was recognized as a common topos in imperial biography. A few have explicitly accepted Anderson's thesis. None of them, however, has discussed Anderson's arguments in detail, which is what I wish to do here.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1-2 , November 1957 , pp. 95 - 103
Copyright
Copyright ©F. A. Lepper 1957. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 S. Aurelii Victoris Liber de Caesaribus … subsequitur Epitome de Caesaribus, rec. Pichlmayr, F., Leipzig (1911), 83Google Scholar.

2 ibid., 139.

3 JRS 1 (1911), 173 ffGoogle Scholar. He lists previous works.

4 e.g. L. Homo, Le Haut-Empire (1933) 285.

5 e.g. E. Hohl, P-W suppl. III (1918), 392; Pareti, L., Storia di Roma IV (1955), 842Google Scholar. cf. Lepore, E., Parola del Passato III (1948), 83 fGoogle Scholar.

6 e.g. Paribeni, R., Optimus Princeps II (1927), 23 f.Google Scholar; Momigliano, A., CAH x (1934), 706Google Scholar; M. A. Levi, Nerone e i suoi tempi (1949) 127.

7 Nerva's reign, as part of the new régime (cf. Tac., Agr. 3, Hist. 1, 1; Eutropius VIII, I), can presumably be excluded from the count.

8 Anderson, 1.c. 176 f., dismisses other possible interpretations of Victor's words.

9 Pontic coins show an era beginning in October, 64: for the evidence see D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor 1417 f., n. 62. On the Cottian Alps (63 ?), see Anderson, 1.c. 177, n. 3.

10 The amphitheatre is dated to 57 by Tacitus, Ann. XIII, 31. The baths are dated to 64 by Jerome and Cassiodorus, but if-dedicated at the same time as the Gymnasium (cf. Suet., Nero 12; Tac., Ann. XIV, 47; Dio LXI, 21, 1), should belong to 60–2. The evidence is collected in Platner-Ashby, , Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (1929) 11, 249, 531 fGoogle Scholar.

11 JRS 1 (1911), 178 f.Google Scholar Bolton, J. D. P., CQ XLII (1948), 83Google Scholar, n. 5, prefers Haverfield's view to Anderson's. But the Domus Aurea, begun in 64 and still unfinished at Nero's death (Suet., Otho 7), can scarcely be fitted into this period.

12 Tac., Ann. xv, 42–3.

13 cf. Platner-Ashby, o.c. 166 ff., 534 ff.

14 Epit. 1, 19. cf. Suet., Div. Aug. 28, 3.

15 On Victor and the Epitomator see esp. Schanz, M., Gesch. d. röm. Litteratur IV, I2 (1914), 65 ff.Google Scholar, and works there cited; Hartke, W., De saeculi quarti exeuntis historiarum scriptoribus quaestiones, Leipzig (1932)Google Scholar,—rev. Baynes, N. H., CR XLVIII (1934). 42Google Scholar.

16 Caes. 42, 20.

17 Amm. Marc. XXI, 10, 6.

18 The only possible echo of Victor thereafter is Epit. 41, 2–3 (Caes. 40, 3–4).

19 Epit. 48, 1, 8–10. cf. Themistius, Or. XVI, p. 250, XIX, p. 279 (Dind.); Symmachus, Ep. 1, 13, 3; Pacatus, Paneg. Theod. II (p. 281 Baehrens). Other references in W. Hartke, Römische Kinderkaiser (1951) 138 ff., 332 ff. Victor's own dedication to Theodosius ‘veterum principum clementiam sanctitudinem munificentiam supergresso’, ILS 2945, was found near the foot of Trajan's column.

20 SHA Firm. 1, 2.

21 Listed by Cohn, A., Quibus ex fontibus S. Aurelii Victoris et libri de Caesaribus et epitomes undecim capita priora fluxerint, Diss. Berlin (1884), 45 ff., 51 ffGoogle Scholar.

22 e.g. Caes. 4, 11, where Claudius is said to have gone to Ostia ‘animi ac pellicum gratia’ in 48 (an inference from Tac., Ann. XI, 29, 3 ?): cf. Ann. XI. 26, ‘sacrificii gratia,’ Dio LX, 31,4, πρὸς ἐπίσκεψιν σίτου.

23 cf. Momigliano, , Rend. Linc. ser. VI, vol. VIII (1932), 293 ffGoogle Scholar.

24 Dio LXIII, 22, 1 (Xiph. and Zonaras; not in Exc. Val. 256). SHA Alex. 1, 7, calls him Lucius. No other source records a praenomen.

25 cf. Suet., Nero 48, 1, 3; 49, 3; Dom. 14, 4; Dio LXIII, 27, 3. Suetonius, however, says there were four, and Josephus, BJ IV, 9, 493, agrees.

26 Epit. 10, 4; cf. Suet., Titus 6, 2.

27 Epit. 11, 9–10, ‘maxime iniuria verborum, qua scortum vocari dolebat, accensus.’ Lappius may have been named fully by Dio, but Xiphilinus (Dio LXVII, 11) only has Λούκιος Μάξιμος, and Exc. Val. 283 only Μάξιμός τις.

28 Epit. 2, 9: a natural enough mistake for a fourth-century writer. Sarmatian threats (by the Roxolani and others) to Lower Moesia ceased in the first half of the third century, being replaced by the raids of the Goths; the Sarmatae Iazyges, however, though not on the borders of Pannonia until c. A.D. 50, gave constant trouble from the time of Domitian to the time of Theodoric.

29 See esp. Enmann, A., Philol. suppl. IV (1884), 335 ff.Google Scholar; Ch. Lécrivain, Études sur l'hist. Auguste (1904), 423 ff.; O. Th. Schulz, Das Kaiserhaus der Antonine und der letzte Historiker Roms (1907); E. Kornemann, Kaiser Hadrian und der letzte grosse Historiker von Rom (1905). For criticism, Barbieri, G., An. Sc. Norm. Pisa ser. II, vol. III (1934), 525 ffGoogle Scholar.

30 If the Common Source gave reign-lengths and ages at death in years, months, and days, then some of the discrepancies between Victor and the Epitomator are due to different methods of arriving at a round figure. The figures in Epit. 2, 10, and Caes. 8, 6, are corrupt. In Caes. 10, 5, Epit. 10, 1, 15, the alternative causes of Titus' death may both have been given by the Common Source (cf. the cases of Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius); the discrepancy over the age of Titus may derive from the muddle in Suet., Tit. 1 and 11 (cf. PIR 2 III, 184); more serious is the case of the reign-length, where Dio LXVI, 18, 4 (Xiph.) and the Epitomator seem to have one version, Victor and Eutropius VII, 22, 1, another.

31 Caes. 5, 3–4, Epit. 5, 5; Caes. 8, 7–8, Epit. 8, 6; Caes. 11, 12–13, Epit. 11, 15. For Caes. 5, 17, cf. Suet. Galba 1 and Dio LXIII, 29, 3.

32 o.c. 8 ff. cf. also Peter, H., Gesch. Litt. röm. Kais. 11 (1897), 132Google Scholar, n. 6.

33 Those who wish to date the Scriptores Historiae Augustae earlier than 360 naturally arrive at similar conclusions about Victor in discussing the correspondence between Caes. 20, 1–31, and SHA Sev. XVII, 5–XIX, 4. cf. recently, H. Stern, Date et destinataire de l'Histoire Auguste (1953) 17 ff. But that is fortunately a separate problem. On brevity, cf. the prefaces of Eutropius and Festus, and Amm. xv, 1,1.

34 Cohn, o.c. 20 f., lists some of the Epitomator‘s errors, several of which, however, may be due to his source.

35 Pliny, NH x, 2, 5; Dio, LVIII, 27, 1; Tac., Ann. VI, 28.

36 Pliny, NH II, 89, 202, where A's ‘Iunio Silano Laelio Balbo cos.’ is correct, cf. the Fasti of Teanum, Inser. Ital. XIII, I, 264 f.; Seneca, NQ VI, 21, 11, 26; Orosius VII, 6.

37 e.g. Epit. 11, 6–8, cf. Caes. 11, 5–6.

38 Suet., Nero 19, 3, cf. 26, 1.

39 A. Alföldi, Die Kontorniaten (1943), esp. 59 ff., 85 ff.,—rev. Toynbee, J. M. C., JRS xxxv (1945), 115 ff.Google Scholar; Mazzarino, S., Doxa IV (1951), 121 ffGoogle Scholar.

40 On all this see esp. the fully documented discussion by Wirszubski, Ch., Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome (Cambridge, 1950) 124 ff.Google Scholar, and works there cited.

41 cf. Schanz-Hosius, Gesch. röm. Lit. II4 (1935), 679 ff., and recently Martinazzoli, F., Seneca: studio sulla morale ellenica nell'esperienza romana (Florence, 1945)Google Scholar; Lepore, E., Parola del Passato III (1948), 87 ff.Google Scholar; M. A. Levi, o.c. 147 f.

42 Tac., Ann. XIII, 4; Dio LXI, 3.

43 e.g. Seneca, de Clem. II, I; Suet., Nero 10, 2. cf. also Tac., Ann. XIII, 50, where I agree with Crook, J., Consilium Principis (Cambridge, 1955), 120Google Scholar.

44 On the date and objects of the Apocolocyntosis see Toynbee, J. M. C., CQ XXXVI (1942), 83 ffGoogle Scholar.

45 Suet., Nero 52, which does not prove that Nero got no instruction from his tutor on the philosophy and rhetoric of Seneca.

46 Tac., Ann. XII 42; XIII, 1–2, 5; XIV, 11. Coins showing ‘divi Claudi f.’ are only found in 54–5, and mainly on the joint Nero-Agrippina issues.

47 Tac., Ann. XIII, 33, 49; XVI, 21, 25–6; cf. PIR 2 II, 283 f.

48 Seneca, de Clem. 1, I, 5–6; 9, 1; 11, 1.

49 cf. Toynbee, I.c. 86 ff.

50 Tac., Ann. XIV, 3–8, 12, 14–5; XVI, 21; Dio LXI, 15, 2.

51 Tac., Ann. xv, 67; cf. Dio LXII, 24, 2.

52 Titus never quite lived down his early record: cf. Suet., Tit. 1 ff.; Dio LXVI, 17, 1, 18; Julian, Caes. 311a; Victor, Caes. 10, 1; Epit. 10, 3–8; possibly also Pliny, Pan. 4, 5. For innocentia as an imperial virtue cf. Tac., Hist. 11, 37; Pliny, Pan. 28, 3; 49, 3; SHA, Alex. 6, 2; 9, 1.

53 Tac., Ann. XIII, 25, 45–7; Dio LXI, 8–9.

54 Tac., Ann. XIII, 15; Dio LXI, 7, 4.

55 Dio LX, 35, 2.

56 Dio LXI, 4, 1–2.

57 cf. e.g. W. Hartke, Römische Kinderkaiser 92 ff., 142 ff., 190 ff., 332 ff.

58 Examples of precise data, which look well-founded, but are not in Suetonius or the surviving parts of Tacitus and Dio, are the figure for the annual import of corn from Egypt under Augustus, Epit. 1, 6; the tale of Augustus' fast during a corn-shortage, Epit. 1, 29–30 (cf. Pliny, NH VII, 45, 149Google Scholar); and the name of the man who dragged out the hiding Claudius in A.D. 41, Caes. 3, 16, (cf., however, Josephus, , AJ XIX 3, 1, 217Google Scholar). See also Epit. 1, 20 (cf. Serv., ad Aen. VII, 680); Epit. 1, 28 (cf. Lyd., de mag. 11, 3, SHA, Sev. 18, 7 and Vict., Caes. 20, 6); Caes. 5, 14; Epit. 10, 4; 11, 10.

59 Late allusions are very rare, but they do occur. cf. Caes. 9, 12, 13, 6—the latter with a reference to Anatolius, Prefect of Illyricum c. 357–60; Epit. 9, 10—for Pertunsa Petra cf. Procopius, BG IV, 28; CIL XI, 6106–7, P-W s.vv. ‘Intercisa’, ‘Petra Pertusa’; Epit. g, 13—for Augustophratensis cf. Amm. XIV, 8, 7; Procopius, BP 1, 17; II, 20.

60 cf. Pliny, Ep. VI, 31, 9; x, 55; 97, 2; Pan. 67, 8; Vict., Caes. 13, 9; Dio LXVIII, 16, 1; and in general Dio LXVIII, 7, 3–4; Epit. 13, 8; SHA Hadr. III, 11; Julian, Caes. 327a—328b; Dio Chrys., Or. II, 6; 26 ff.; III, 3; XXXII, 60.

61 cf., e.g., Eutrop., VIII, 5, 1 (a development of Pliny, Pan. 44, 1–2 ?), and Cassiod, Ep. VIII, 13.

62 CIL XVI, 47; P-W x, 1039 f.

63 Caes. 42, 25.

64 He was, if he can b e conflated with the gifted barrister and senator, otherwise unattested, (Titius ?) Homulius, of Pliny, Ep. IV, 9, 5; v, 20, 6; VI, 19, 3. cf. P-W VI, A, ii, 1567.

65 SHA Pius II, 8; P-W VIII, A, i, 42.