The expenses which fell on the fiscus were heavy. Every year Nero presented 60,000,000 sesterces “to the state”. This sum was chiefly devoted to defray the cost of supplying the city with corn, but it also included an advance to theaerarium, which was never able to meet its claims without aid from the fisc. The wars in Armenia and Britain were also costly, over and above the ordinary expenses of maintaining the administration and the armies throughout the Empire. The consequence was that, when the outlay of the court became extravagant under the guidance of Tigellinus and Nero’s other licentious friends, the funds ran short, and the Emperor was driven to resort to the same measures to replenish his treasury as had been adopted by his uncle Gaius. The methods of delation and confiscation were again introduced. The rich were accused on false or trifling charges, and their possessions appropriated by the fisc. Among the first victims who were sacrificed were two rich freedmen : Nero’s secretary Doryphorus, who had presumed to oppose his master’s marriage with Poppaea, and the old Pallas, who had amassed an immense fortune, which, when he was deposed from his office, he had been suffered to retain. As Pallas had become wealthy by defrauding the imperial treasury which he administered under Claudius, there was no glaring injustice in confiscating his fortune.
Seneca offered to place his wealth at the Emperor’s disposal, but the offer was refused.
But the most important effect of the financial difficulties was the fatal measure to which the government resorted of depreciating the gold and silver coinage. This began as early as the years 61 and 62. Forty-five instead of forty aura, and ninety-six instead of eighty denarii, were struck out of a pound of gold. The coinage never recovered itself, and from Nero’s reign we must date the bankruptcy which reached a climax in the third century. The immense amount of silver which was drafted from the Empire to Eastern Asia in return for oriental luxuries, must be taken into account as a cause of the debasement of the silver coinage. Nero, further, robbed the senate of their right of coining copper—a right, the importance of which has been already explained.
SECT. III. — THE GREAT FIRE IN ROME
If Nero succeeded in replenishing his coffers by fair means and foul, an event happened in 64 A.D., which demanded all the resources of the fiscus. Fires were common in Rome, but on the night of July 18 of that year, a conflagration broke out which in magnitude exceeded anything that had been experienced before. It began among some shops full of inflammable material, at the southeast end of the Great Circus, where the valleys west of the Caelian and south of the Palatine meet. Driven by a high wind the flames consumed the wooden benches and structures of the Circus, and spread rapidly and irresistibly over the Palatine, the Velia, and the Esquiline, where, near the gardens of Maecenas, their course was stayed. But in another direction, also, the fire made its way, and consumed many buildings on the Aventine, in the Forum Boarium, and the Velabrum. It raged for seven nights and six days, and when all thought that it was over, it broke out again in the Campus Martius, destroyed the buildings of the Aemilian Gardens, which belonged to Tigellinus, and spread to the foot of the Capitoline and the Quirinal. It was said that of the fourteen regions, seven completely and four partially were reduced to ashes. But it has been shown that this must be an exaggeration, although the damage done was enormous. Among the public buildings which were consumed, were the temple of Jupiter Stator founded by Romulus, the Regia of Numa, and the temple of Vesta, the temple of Diana dedicated by Servius on the Aventine, the Ara Magna ascribed by legend to Evander—all ancient monuments said to date from the time of the kings. More serious, from a practical point of view, was the destruction of the splendid edifices of Augustus on the Palatine, the palace and the temple of Apollo. The new buildings in the Campus Martius near the Flaminian Circus had also seriously suffered. Numbers of priceless works of the great Greek sculptors, which no wealth could ever replace, perished in the flames, and countless memorials and trophies of Roman history must have been lost forever.
In this emergency Nero showed himself in the most favorable light. He was absent at Antium when the fire broke out, and he returned to the city as the conflagration was approaching the palace, He left nothing undone in his attempts to quell the flames. He rushed about the city by himself, without attendants or guards, to the places which were most in danger, and when at length the fire ceased to spread, he did all he could to help and relieve the terrible distress of the homeless and shelterless thousands who had lost all their belongings. The public buildings and the imperial gardens were opened to receive them, and a temporary shelter was erected in the Campus. The price of corn was lowered to three sesterces a bushel, and contributions were levied for the relief of the sufferers.
The rebuilding of Rome was begun with vigor. It must have involved a vast outlay, and Nero was determined that the city should arise from its ashes both on a more splendid scale and on a more rational and salubrious plan. The mistakes of the old architecture were comprehended and avoided. The streets were made wider, the houses lower and, partly at least, of stone. Arcades were built outside the new houses for protection from sun and rain. But the new palace—the Golden House as it was called—planned by the architects Severus and Celer, was the wonder of the restored Rome. It was not so much the splendor of the house that excited wonder, as the fields, the ponds, the wooded solitudes, the views of the park. Italy and the provinces were required to contribute to the restoration of their mistress city, and treasures of art which adorned the cities and temples of the Greek lands were carried off to replace those which Rome had lose.
There is no reason to suppose that the outbreak of this great fire was other than accidental. But the multitude suspected incendiaries, and a wild rumor was circulated that the Emperor himself was privy to the burning of the city. Various motives were attributed for such a monstrous act. It was said that he wished to outlive the destruction of his mother-city, or that he desired to rebuild Rome and call it by his own name, or that his artistic sense was offended by the architectural ugliness of the city. It is also related that he regarded the ravages of the flames from the palace of Maecenas with delight, and sang a scene from his own play on the Capture of Troy. For this anecdote there may be some foundation in fact. But the charge of incendiarism, which even contemporaries brought against Nero, was assuredly false. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose by the destruction of Rome. The solicitude which he always showed for the welfare of the populace, and the efforts which lie made to Save the Palatine, are hardly consistent with such a supposition. Nor is it conceivable that, at a moment when he was pressed by financial difficulties, he would have gone out of his way to burden the treasury with the enormous expenses required for the rebuilding of the city and the maintenance of the sufferers. The Emperor had many enemies, whose interest it was to place him in the worst light, and we can easily understand that they either originated or fostered the rumor. But it was generally believed that incendiaries were at work, and there were police investigations which led to the arrest and punishment of a number of people “whom the vulgar called Christians”. Here for the first time the Christian sect appears on the stage of profane history, and the remarkable words in which Tacitus describes it deserve to be quoted. “ Christus, from whom this name was derived, was executed when Tiberius was Imperator, by Pontius Pilatus the procurator. The pernicious superstition, checked for the time being, again broke out, not only in Judea, its own initial home, but even in the city, the meeting-place of all horrible and immoral practices from all quarters of the world”. This description represents the popular belief that the Christians practiced all sorts of horrors in their secret assemblies, such as cannibalism and incest. Those who were known to be Christians, and confessed the creed when they were charged with it, were first arrested, and some of these, under torture, betrayed the names of many others who were secretly Christians, but were not known as such. The prisoners were not tried strictly on the charge of incendiarism; and Tacitus seems