Annals 14: - Degeneracy Under Nero
In Nero's fourth consulship with Cornelius Cossus for his colleague,
a theatrical entertainment to be repeated every five years was
established at Rome in imitation of the Greek festival. Like all
novelties, it was variously canvassed. There were some who declared
that even Cnius Pompeius was censured by the older men of the
day for having set up a fixed and permanent theatre. "Formerly,"
they said, "the games were usually exhibited with hastily
erected tiers of benches and a temporary stage, and the people
stood to witness them, that they might not, by having the chance
of sitting down, spend a succession of entire days in idleness.
Let the ancient character of these shows be retained, whenever
the praetors exhibited them, and let no citizen be under the necessity
of competing. As it was, the morality of their fathers, which
had by degrees been forgotten, was utterly subverted by the introduction
of a lax tone, so that all which could suffer or produce corruption
was to be seen at Rome, and a degeneracy bred by foreign tastes
was infecting the youth who devoted themselves to athletic sports,
to idle loungings and low intrigues, with the encouragement of
the emperor and Senate, who not only granted licence to vice,
but even applied a compulsion to drive Roman nobles into disgracing
themselves on the stage, under the pretence of being orators and
poets. What remained for them but to strip themselves naked, put
on the boxing-glove, and practise such battles instead of the
arms of legitimate warfare? Would justice be promoted, or would
they serve on the knights' commissions for the honourable office
of a judge, because they had listened with critical sagacity to
effeminate strains of music and sweet voices? Night too was given
up to infamy, so that virtue had not a moment left to her, but
all the vilest of that promiscuous throng dared to do in the darkness
anything they had lusted for in the day."
Annals 14:42 A Slave Kills His Master [because of a homosexual
infatuation?]
The Issue here is not homosexuality, but the elite's fear of
its slaves.
Soon afterwards one of his own slaves murdered the city-prefect,
Pedanius Secundus, either because he had been refused his freedom,
for which he had made a bargain, or in the jealousy of a love
in which he could not brook his master's rivalry. Ancient custom
required that the whole slave-establishment which had dwelt under
the same roof should be dragged to execution, when a sudden gathering
of the populace, which was for saving so many innocent lives,
brought matters to actual insurrection. Even in the Senate there
was a strong feeling on the part of those who shrank from extreme
rigour, though the majority were opposed to any innovation. Of
these, Caius Cassius, in giving his vote, argued to the following
effect:-
"Often have I been present, Senators, in this assembly when
new decrees were demanded from us contrary to the customs and
laws of our ancestors, and I have refrained from opposition, not
because I doubted but that in all matters the arrangements of
the past were better and fairer and that all changes were for
the worse, but that I might not seem to be exalting my own profession
out of an excessive partiality for ancient precedent. At the same
time I thought that any influence I possess ought not to be destroyed
by incessant protests, wishing that it might remain unimpaired,
should the State ever need my counsels. To-day this has come to
pass, since an ex-consul has been murdered in his house by the
treachery of slaves, which not one hindered or divulged, though
the Senate's decree, which threatens the entire slave-establishment
with execution, has been till now unshaken. Vote impunity, in
heaven's name, and then who will be protected by his rank, when
the prefecture of the capital has been of no avail to its holder?
Who will be kept safe by the number of his slaves when four hundred
have not protected Pedanius Secundus? Which of us will be rescued
by his domestics, who, even with the dread of punishment before
them, regard not our dangers? Was the murderer, as some do not
blush to pretend, avenging his wrongs because he had bargained
about money from his father or because a family-slave was taken
from him? Let us actually decide that the master was justly slain.
"Is it your pleasure to search for arguments in a matter
already weighed in the deliberations of wiser men than ourselves?
Even if we had now for the first time to come to a decision, do
you believe that a slave took courage to murder his master without
letting fall a threatening word or uttering a rash syllable? Granted
that he concealed his purpose, that he procured his weapon without
his fellows' knowledge. Could he pass the night-guard, could he
open the doors of the chamber, carry in a light, and accomplish
the murder, while all were in ignorance? There are many preliminaries
to guilt; if these are divulged by slaves, we may live singly
amid numbers, safe among a trembling throng; lastly, if we must
perish, it will be with vengeance on the guilty. Our ancestors
always suspected the temper of their slaves, even when they were
born on the same estates, or in the same houses with themselves
and thus inherited from their birth an affection for their masters.
But now that we have in our households nations with different
customs to our own, with a foreign worship or none at all, it
is only by terror you can hold in such a motley rabble. But, it
will be said, the innocent will perish. Well, even in a beaten
army when every tenth man is felled by the club, the lot falls
also on the brave. There is some injustice in every great precedent,
which, though injurious to individuals, has its compensation in
the public advantage."
No one indeed dared singly to oppose the opinion of Cassius, but
clamorous voices rose in reply from all who pitied the number,
age, or sex, as well as the undoubted innocence of the great majority.
Still, the party which voted for their execution prevailed. But
the sentence could not be obeyed in the face of a dense and threatening
mob, with stones and firebrands. Then the emperor reprimanded
the people by edict, and lined with a force of soldiers the entire
route by which the condemned had to be dragged to execution. Cingonius
Varro had proposed that even all the freedmen under the same roof
should be transported from Italy. This the emperor forbade, as
he did not wish an ancient custom, which mercy had not relaxed,
to be strained with cruel rigour.
Annals 15:37 - Nero's Wedding to a Man
Nero, to win credit for himself of enjoying nothing so much as
the capital, prepared banquets in the public places, and used
the whole city, so to say, as his private house. Of these entertainments
the most famous for their notorious profligacy were those furnished
by Tigellinus, which I will describe as an illustration, that
I may not have again and again to narrate similar extravagance.
He had a raft constructed on Agrippa's lake, put the guests on
board and set it in motion by other vessels towing it. These vessels
glittered with gold and ivory; the crews were arranged according
to age and experience in vice. Birds and beasts had been procured
from remote countries, and sea monsters from the ocean. On the
margin of the lake were set up brothels crowded with noble ladies,
and on the opposite bank were seen naked prostitutes with obscene
gestures and movements. As darkness approached, all the adjacent
grove and surrounding buildings resounded with song, and shone
brilliantly with lights. Nero, who polluted himself by every lawful
or lawless indulgence, had not omitted a single abomination which
could heighten his depravity, till a few days afterwards he stooped
to marry himself to one of that filthy herd, by name Pythagoras,
with all the forms of regular wedlock. The bridal veil was put
over the emperor; people saw the witnesses of the ceremony, the
wedding dower, the couch and the nuptial torches; everything in
a word was plainly visible, which, even when a woman weds darkness
hides.
[For this incident also see Suetonius, Nero 27; Dio Cassius, Epitome 62:28. Cf. Martial 12:42]]
Source.
From: TacitusL Annals
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