Tigellinus’ son-in-law Capito now saw an opportunity to settle an old score and stood up in the Senate and leveled accusations against Publius Thrasea Paetus, the dour, serious Stoic who had for many years been one of the most highly influential members of the House. Early in Nero’s reign, Thrasea had impeached Capito in the Senate for extortion while serving in Cilicia. Thrasea had succeeded in having Capito convicted, after which the Stoic had him removed from the Senatorial Order as punishment. Several years later, Capito had been restored to the Senate through Tigellinus’ influence, but Capito had never forgotten that Thrasea had been responsible for his conviction.
Capito knew that Thrasea had never liked Nero and that the feeling was mutual. Thrasea had walked out of the Senate when it was debating Nero’s treason charges against Agrippina the Younger in AD 59, after Agrippina’s murder at Baiae, refusing to participate in her condemnation. Nor had Thrasea ever sponsored the Juvenile Games, long a passion of Nero’s, which was expected of former consuls. Thrasea had led the Senate in reducing the sentence of Nero’s slanderer Sosianus. Moreover, the senator had failed to attend the House session that had decreed divine honors to the empress Poppaea, and neither had he attended her funeral. Even though he was one of the fifteen priests, the Quindecimviri, in recent times Thrasea had failed to attend the January 1 recitation of the oath of allegiance and public prayers for the emperor on the Capitol, and never had he offered a public sacrifice for the safety of the emperor as other priests made a habit of doing.
Thrasea’s feelings toward the emperor could not have been more plain, just as Nero could not be blamed for disliking this man who disrespected him so obviously and so publicly, and to whom so many other senators looked for their lead. Capito, then, was tilling fertile ground at the Palatium when he began his campaign against Thrasea by writing a letter to the emperor, condemning the man.
By AD 66, Thrasea had not appeared in the Senate for three years. Throughout that time, he had kept out of the limelight and out of all political affairs, only concerning himself with his personal business and that of his clients. No longer going to the theater, attending the games, or officiating at temples, Thrasea had been receiving visitors in his famously beautiful gardens at Rome. After listing the numerous examples of Thrasea’s brazenly insulting behavior toward the emperor, Capito was able to turn Thrasea’s recent absence from public life against him. Capito pointed out that while Thrasea had refrained from taking his seat in the House to vote down the convicted traitors Vetus and Silanus, in times past he had made a point of voting on even the most ordinary of motions.
Tigellinus’ son-in-law likened the schism between Thrasea and the emperor to a state of war. Capito told Nero, “He is the only man who doesn’t care for your safety or doesn’t honor your accomplishments.” He accused Thrasea of being the leader and the adviser of a group that wanted to change Rome’s system of government. “They make a show of freedom,” Capito said, “to overturn the empire. Should they destroy it, they will assault freedom itself.” Capito urged the emperor not to write to the Senate to express his views on Thrasea, but to let the House debate his conduct and settle his fate.
6
At this same time, another prosecution was about to be launched in the Senate, against yet another leading man. This was directed against the former consul Barea Soranus. As governor of Asia in AD 64, Soranus had made himself unpopular with the Palatium that year by not punishing locals who had resisted the efforts of the emperor’s commissioners sent to remove gold and silver statues and valuable paintings from temples at the city of Pergamos for Rome’s Great Fire relief fund. Soranus, apparently a native of Asia, now stood accused of secretly supporting Rubellius Plautus when Plautus was living in self-imposed exile in the province, and with having been involved in intrigues designed to lure the people of Asia into revolt in support of Plautus and against Nero.
As Nero was considering the contents of Capito’s letter at Neapolis, word reached him that King Tiridates I of Armenia and his entourage had entered Italy from the northeast. For close to nine months, Tiridates and his party, which included numerous members of the Parthian royal family, had been making their way overland from Armenia. The king’s personal escort included three thousand Parthian cavalry—the Parthian army was primarily made up of mounted troops, both horse archers and heavily armored
cataphracts
. They were accompanied by numerous Roman mounted troops, among them Mazacian cavalry from Mauritania in northwest Africa. Tiridates was now on the last leg of his journey to Rome, to take part in the planned ceremony during which he would swear allegiance to Nero, and when Nero would officially bestow the kingship of Armenia on Tiridates. Arrangements had long been in the works for this event.
Nero now issued instructions for a two-horse carriage and Praetorian cavalry to be sent to convey to Neapolis the king and his wife, who had ridden all the way from Armenia on horseback. And, as he ensured that every detail of the official welcome for the king was being finalized, Nero also set down a date in April for a meeting of the Senate to debate the fates of Thrasea and Soranus. The hearing of charges against the pair would coincide with King Tiridates’ arrival at Rome.
XX
THE CROWNING OF A KING
D
own the highway from the Picenum district in eastern Italy came the vast cavalcade of King Tiridates I of Armenia and its Roman escort. “Their progress all the way from the Euphrates [River] was like a triumphal procession,” Cassius Dio would write, likening the royal cavalcade to the parade that followed a Roman general when he celebrated a Triumph through the streets of Rome. All along its route from Parthia, the vast caravan of horses, carts, and pedestrians had been welcomed at every Roman city through which it passed. There were bright decorations, garlands of flowers decking official buildings, and crowds “who shouted many compliments” to the passing king.
1
Parthian-born Tiridates was the brother of Pacorus, king of Media, the northern neighbor of Parthia. More importantly, Tiridates was also the brother of Vologases, king of Parthia, that eastern empire that had been Rome’s most implacable enemy for centuries. One of Rome’s greatest defeats had been suffered at the hands of the Parthians, when the triumvir Marcus Crassus had in 53 BC perished and forty thousand of his legionaries had been killed or captured in a running battle at Carrhae, in today’s Turkey. For a Parthian prince to travel to Rome to bow down to the emperor of Rome was unheard-of, but here was Tiridates embarking on just such an exercise.
The credit was due to Roman general Corbulo and Roman force of arms, which had twice humiliated Parthian forces since AD 62. The very presence of Corbulo in the east threatened Roman invasion of Parthia, and the Parthians clearly dreaded such a prospect. Yet, while the Parthians considered Corbulo a great general, their respect was chiefly reserved for the man who had appointed him and sent him to the east, his sovereign lord Nero Caesar.
Tiridates arrived at Neapolis with his wife, who all through their journey had worn a golden helmet with a visor that covered her face in place of a veil, “so as not to defy the traditions of her country by letting her face be seen,” said Dio.
2
The king was met by Palatium freedmen who, noticing that he wore a dagger on his belt, informed him that he could not wear that when he met the emperor—no armed man apart from his bodyguards was allowed to approach Nero. When Tiridates refused to remove his dagger, a compromise was struck; the king had the dagger nailed into its sheath, so that it could be worn but not drawn.
The day for the meeting between emperor and king arrived. Tiridates was a middle-aged man, tall and slim with a mustache and bushy beard. He wore a loose, long-sleeved tunic, trousers, sandals, and a turban. A rich cloak, pinned at his right shoulder, hung down his back, almost reaching the ground. A belt circled his waist, and slung on his left hip was his dagger, nailed into its scabbard as agreed. He walked with the aid of a long staff. Nero, garbed in the outfit of a triumphant Roman general, sat on his curule chair of ivory and gold and beckoned Tiridates forward. Along an avenue of fully armed Praetorian troops standing stiffly at attention, the king approached. Just several feet from Nero, the king stopped. Laying aside his staff, he dropped to his knees. Crossing his arms across his chest, he bowed low, paying obeisance to the emperor of Rome. “Nero admired him for this action,” said Dio.
3
An entertainment had been arranged for the king and senior members of his party, which also included his sons and several nephews. It being the month of March, the port city of Puteoli, farther around the Bay of Naples, was staging its annual
munus
in honor of war god Mars. Nero’s party and the king’s party combined to move up to Puteoli, which was on the route to Rome, and halted there to enjoy the Puteoli
munus
. The editor of the Puteoli games was Nero’s freedman Patrobius, and it was “a most brilliant and costly affair.”
4
Patrobius’ Puetoli
munus
was a pageant of diverse people and ‘pleasures.’ On one day of the games, for example, in addition to the usual gladiatorial contests, only dark-skinned Ethiopians—men, women, and children—were sent into the arena to face wild beasts. Two tribunals had been set up in the stands of the Puteoli amphitheater for the king’s visit, one for Nero and his imperial party, the other, across the arena, for Tiridates and his party. By way of paying honor to the editor of the games, Tiridates shot at animals from his tribunal, using the traditional Parthian bow.
Parthians were famed for their skills as archers. Their horse archers had perfected a technique, called the Parthian shot, whereby a horseman would turn and fire back over the rump of his horse with devastating accuracy as he rode away from his opponents, just when they thought he was retreating. This, some claim, was the origin of the term that we use today:
a parting shot
. All Parthian nobles were taught how to ride and shoot from an early age, and it turned out that Tiridates had been an excellent student and was a crack shot with the bow. “If one can believe it,” Cassius Dio wrote, Tiridates was said to have “transfixed and killed two bulls with a single arrow” there in the Puteoli arena.
5
Following the Puteoli games, the massive combined cavalcade continued up the Appian way, with reportedly no less than a thousand vehicles in the train. Around Nero himself rode the Mazacian cavalry, their outriders jingling with bracelets and medallions. Word had been sent to Rome that the cavalcade was nearing the capital, and “all Rome rushed out to welcome the emperor and see the king.”
6
Among the throng were all those members of the Senate who were not traveling in Nero’s entourage, with one exception—Thrasea Paetus, the leading senator under threat of prosecution at the forthcoming Senate session, for, on Nero’s orders, he was banned from leaving the city.
The procession came up the Via Appia, passing the tombs of noble Romans and entering Rome through the Capena Gate. Moving along city streets lined with a cheering multitude held back by the troops of the Praetorian, City, and German Cohorts, who all hailed their emperor as he passed by, a smiling, waving Nero acknowledged the reception as the king took in all the splendor of the city at the center of the world. They made their way to the Golden House, Nero’s vast, near-completed new palace.
In the twenty months since the Great Fire, the palace and its astonishing gardens had risen where blackened rubble had once lain. The Circus Maximus had been rebuilt in timber, at the expense of numerous forests in distant provinces, while two-thirds of the city of Rome had been entirely rebuilt in stone. The temples and public buildings were restored. New, wider streets replaced the former rabbit warrens of streets that had characterized old Rome. Colonnades and public squares equipped with water basins had appeared in the rebuilt residential areas. It was a new city and a more beautiful one than the old, Tacitus observed.
7
There were still large numbers of workers, slave and free, employed in construction and restoration work, which would continue for a time yet, but the majority of the work had been done. To the eyes of the easterners, new Rome must have been breathtaking.
Numerous buildings had been decorated with garlands, incidentally to welcome the emperor and the king, but also in preparation for the Megalesia, the annual seven-day festival dedicated to the Magna Mater, or Great Mother, the goddess Cybele. Running from April 4, just a few days away, the festival would this year showcase the greatness of Rome for the benefit of King Tiridates and his party.
That night, oil-fired lights glowed throughout the city, illuminating the shining marble, gold, and precious stones adorning the temples and palaces. Teams of slaves worked through the night, completing temporary wooden grandstands erected along two sides of the Forum Romanum. Yet, Suetonius wrote, the day fixed by Neronian edict for the ceremony in which Tiridates would swear allegiance to Nero—that is, the day before the commencement of the Megalesia Festival—dawned overcast and gray. The omens were not good. The ceremony was postponed for a day.