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BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
by his musical abilities, in particular his playing of the lyre. His base was
the island of Cynthus, in the Aegean, to where his ship had been driven by
storms. He is said to have formed a band from vagabond deserters, and
to have gained wealth and slaves from piratical raids on passing merchant
vessels. He armed the crews of the latter, especially the strongest among
them, and used them to reinforce his crew. Armed bands of slaves and
deserters, led by a slave or freedman who had usurped the identity of a fallen
emperor: it is impossible to determine how far these things corresponded
to reality. However, the whole affair amounts to a typical example of how
Tacitus turns a minor revolt into a typical latrocinium and into a symptom
of the political and moral crisis of the Roman state. In this respect, Tacitus
goes on to say, the news of the uprising and the allure of the name of Nero
attracted many people who, discontented with their lot, countenanced revolution.
108 We can, of course, only guess at which groups of people in the
Roman East may, in the face of the impending civil war between Vespasian
and Vitellius, have entertained thoughts of revolution. Assuming that this
is no fictional imputation on the part of Tacitus, the chief suspects are
Vespasian’s enemies in the region – followers of Nero the philhellene, 109 or
even adherents of Vitellius.
The spectre of the false Nero was laid to rest by the governor of Galatia
and Pamphylia who, with two warships of the fleet at Misenum, ran down
his vessel, took him prisoner and had him executed. The imposter’s head,
like in later times those of usurpers, was sent to Rome – an indication of just
how much unease the incident had provoked, the more so in a situation
of civil strife. Ostensibly the fraudster sought to win over to his cause the
naval captain sent to arrest him. Still posing as Nero, he ordered this officer
to convey him to Syria or Egypt. Taken at face value, this signifies that the
false Nero sought a direct confrontation with Vespasian. However, it seems
that here we have rather a doublet of the corresponding section of Tacitus’
account of the false Drusus. 110 In both instances Tacitus conjures up the
danger of imposters being able to take over the Syrian army group and using
its strength to aim for imperial office – hardly a realistic scenario either in
the case of the false Drusus or, even less so, in that of the false Nero. As they
showed in 69, Roman legions would support usurpers under certain circumstances
but such usurpers had to be known to them personally, as their
trusted commanders, and have no doubts attaching to their identity, their
social status and their merits as prospective emperors. Tacitus clearly deliberately
dramatised his account in order to make the appearance of the false
Nero into an important symptom of the crisis of 69. 111
We return again to the person of the false Nero. Tacitus was able to find
out no more about him than that ‘he was a slave from Pontus or, according
to others, a freedman from Italy’. 112 Apart from his supposed similarity in
appearance to Nero and his ‘Neronian’ skills in lyre-playing and singing, he
must have been able to draw upon extensive intimate knowledge of life at
152