The New Domus Aurea

 

The Emperor Nero may not really have fiddled while Rome burned.  After the great fire which devastated a large portion of the ancient city, however, he took advantage of the devastation to spend enormous sums to build for himself an enormous, extravagant and elaborate palace which came to be called the Domus Aurea, or Golden House.

Perhaps because he wasn't entirely certain the Roman people would know the huge structure was his, he also erected a 120' statute of himself adjacent to this palace.  Portions of this gargantuan edifice have been explored.  They've survived, although Vespasian did his best to bury the Golden House after the Senate and people of Rome finally had enough of the meglomaniac that was responsible for its construction.  In its place he built the Flavian Amphitheater, better known as the Colosseum.  The statue of Nero was transformed into one of the god Sol.

Nero at least didn't himself demolish the buildings he replaced with his monumental house to gratify his ego.  The great fire did that for him.  Now, unfortunately, someone Nero would have recognized as a fellow spirit has torn down part of a building having national significance to satisfy his own self-love by building a very large and unnecessary ballroom.

The ballroom will apparently dwarf the White House itself.  It will be 90,000 square feet; the White House itself is 50,000 square feet.  It will be as large as 1.5 football fields, and will accommodate 999 persons.  Why 999?  This assumes it won't be expanded, though; something almost to be expected.

One wonders what events requiring so much room will take place there.  Inaugural balls, presumably.  When are balls otherwise held?  One seldom hears of balls taking place, outside of Disney films and romantic novels.  If not balls, what?  Proms?  Weddings?  Conventions?

It seems this vast space will decorated in the same gaudy manner as the resorts Nero's fellow spirit has already developed.  Gold, apparently, will be everywhere.  Such an abundance of gold suggests a lack of imagination.  It also suggests a belief that an abundance of gold is necessary to demonstrate wealth and excellence.  Regrettably, that belief has already caused the Oval Office to appear cluttered and tawdry.

What prompts someone to mar nature or dignified historical buildings with such showy self-indulgence?  Some (including this writer) have noted similarities with the wealthy, boorish character of Trimalchio in The Satyricon. He decorated his large villa with frescoes and paintings of events in his life and tokens from his admirers.  He spoke almost exclusively of himself and his properties.

I suspect meglomania can be combined with a terrible kind of insecurity.  The sense of importance and power felt by the meglomaniac is diminished by a nagging fear that he is, in fact, inadequate and looked down upon by others.  And so the meglomaniac is desperate to glorify himself and make a mark on the world, and punish those who won't kowtow to him.

The fact that he is planning to construct a large triumphant arch in the Capitol is most telling.  Those who have done this or had it done for them were great military figures, though.  Does our Ozymandias plan to try and rival them?  Let's hope not.

A True Opposition

 

Once upon a time, a long time in fact, several members of a legislative body opposed the acts of tyrants who held near absolute power over a great empire.  They suffered death and exile as a result.

The tyrants were the Emperors Nero, Vespasian and Domitian (I'll dispense with their full names for purposes of this post).  The members of the legislative body were Roman Senators, and followers of the Stoic philosophy.  Most of them were students of the noted philosopher Musonius Rufus, who was also the teacher of Epictetus.  At the head of this post is a painting of a Quaestor reading his death sentence to one of the most prominent of those Senators, Thrasea Paetus.

Rufus himself was exiled, eventually.  It wasn't uncommon for Emperors to repress philosophers, particularly Stoics. They were notably independent, taught that virtue was the only good, and were critical of imperial conduct that wasn't virtuous.  They and their Senatorial students were generally accused of and condemned for conspiracy against the Emperor.  They were invited to commit suicide, or executed, or sent to some remote island or similarly isolated location.

Of course, most of the members of the Roman Senate after the establishment of the Principate by Augustus were obedient due to fear or because it was in their interest to be outstandingly servile .  There were periods of revolt when Senators favored potential claimants to the throne over established Emperors, but for the most part the Roman aristocracts were compliant with imperial rule so long as they maintained their privileged status and limited power.  Nor were Stoics the only ones who dared criticize an Emperor, but their opposition was notable.

But the fact remains that there were principled, moral Roman Senators who objected to the abuse of power by Emperors who possessed near absolute power, and were willing to give up their lives, status, and fortunes to protest that abuse.

It's good to recall their example in a time when far too many of our legislators are little more than wretched, sniveling, cowardly slaves of a wannabe-emperor who have nothing to lose but their position.  While the members of the Stoic opposition to autocrats in ancient Rome sought to emulate the ideal Stoic Sage by refusing to sanction injustice, our representatives are eager to do whatever is asked of them by an autocrat and his besotted followers.  Our representatives emulate Caspar Milquetoast, or perhaps Uriah Heep (the Dickens character, not the band).

Our representatives' timidity isn't admirable.  It merely encourages a continuing effort to defy rather than preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.  If our representatives lack the desire or courage to be true to their oath to support the Constitution, you'd like to hope that they at least have self-respect enough to refrain from groveling so enthusiastically.

No Bread, No Circuses

The history of the Roman games (ludi) makes a fascinating study.  We're all too ready to draw comparisons with imperial Rome, which still haunts us after all these years, perhaps with good reason (the haunting I mean, not the comparing).  But they're fascinating in themselves, and don't serve merely as an expositive device on which to pontificate regarding the ills of our time.

It is the growth of the games that is astounding.  Not merely the growth in their scope and their expansion to all provinces, but in their number.  Initially a part of religious festivals, they became the means by which the people of the empire were placated, or at least kept relatively calm and complacent, even compliant.  There came a point when most of the year was made up of days devoted to the holding of games of one kind or another, for one reason or another, and this does not even account for the special games put on by the emperors in connection with triumphs or in honor of various favorites and family members.

The games became more and more frequent, and also more and more expensive.  Those arranging the games, senators, nobles, even emperors, regularly went into debt in doing so.  But it would have been unheard of for anyone to decline what became a duty as well as necessary if one was to obtain a high place or a desired end.  The games were an essential facet of politics and government.

Juvenal came up with the phrase that is the basis for the title of this post:  panem et circenses.  He was complaining (that's all he did, really) that in his time all the people of Rome cared for was bread and circuses, unlike their ancestors who were full of civic duty. That was all the people expected from the state, according to Juvenal, and he may well have been right.
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It's fair to be skeptical of the claims made by Juvenal and others (e.g. Tacitus and Suetonius) regarding the depravity of the Roman people and nobles, and of their emperors.  We're not certain when Juvenal was born or died, but it seems he lived during the time of the Flavian emperors, and perhaps even into the reign of Trajan.  It may not be the case that great hordes of gladiators, animals and criminals were killed on a daily basis in the arenas, or that the emperors took a personal delight in the wholesale slaughter they sponsored.  One can easily believe most anything said about Caligula, but this becomes problematic with the "good" emperors like Augustus, Vespasian, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian.  Marcus Aurelius is said to have deplored them, but he attended them nonetheless; he was expected to do so.  He is known to have annoyed the crowd by attending to the business of the state while at the games.  Surprisingly, it seems Domitian tried to curb the excesses of the games.

Nonetheless, the games can be said to have been characteristic of Rome, and their ubiquity and frequency establish their importance to Roman society and culture.  It's likely that all but a few enjoyed the games.  As the emperors were judged in part by their willingness to openly appear at the games and openly enjoy them, it may be that the games served in a peculiar way as a kind of bond between the emperor and the people.

Now, shall I do what I tend to deplore myself, and refer dolefully to the bread and circuses of our time?  It may surprise some to learn that I think we have nothing like them now.  It may be that we're simply not there yet.  Our politics are certainly money-based, and it is becoming more and more expensive to run for and obtain office.  Naturally, our politicians inevitably become more and more reliant on and beholden to those who have the money to give them. 

However, our politicians don't seem inclined to spend much money on the people, at least for the purpose of feeding them or amusing them, and are in this sense different from the politicians of ancient Rome.  They are, though, quite willing to spend money to persuade them, even to fool them, as the politicians of Rome certainly did--but the politicians of today need not do so by feeding them or amusing them.  That is no longer necessary.  For now, in any case.

The avidity of the masters of ancient Rome to spend great sums in feeding the people and holding games for their entertainment indicates not merely that they were manipulative.  It also indicates that they respected and feared the people.  They were the mob, and it was always possible that they would become angry and violent.  The games were in a sense an expression of the power of the people.  The people were a force to be reckoned with, even in an autocracy.  The emperor controlled the legions, true, but only those who ranked above centurions could be considered the aristocracy of the empire; the rest were its subjects, like those attending the games.  They could be relied on only to a certain extent.  The legions came to name their own emperors and revolt when they saw fit; they were to be feared as well, and shrewd emperors took pains to keep them happy as well as the people.

It is an interesting thought that the politicians of our time may not fear us as the politicians and rulers of ancient Rome feared their people.  I refer to the politicians and rulers of the United States.  We haven't demonstrated the capacity for fury and violence the people of the Roman Empire were known to display every now and then; perhaps because we're not as bad off as they were.  No doubt this is a good thing, but it may be that the trade off for this is a certain disregard in those who govern us, and those who govern them through money.  They need not concern themselves overmuch with seeing to it we are fed and distracted, or do so only sporadically, at election time.  Of course, we don't look to our government to entertain us as the Romans did, though there is much amusement to be found in the antics of our politicians.  We have other things to distract us.

As noted, we constantly compare ourselves to ancient Rome.  As far as I am aware, however, we have not done so to note the care taken by the great of that time to keep the people happy, amused and content.  There may be a lesson to be learned in this for the high and mighty, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Hesitant Homage to Hadrian

Publius Aelius Hadrianus Augustus is generally considered to be one of the "Five Good Emperors" along with Nerva, Trajan, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, who governed the Roman Empire for a good chunk of the Second Century CE or AD, which ever you may prefer--with some effort I could come up with the appropriate years A.U.C., ab urbe condita, from the legendary founding of Rome, but I am tired. 

I'm uncertain why Nerva appears among the Fantastic Five.  His reign was very short, though not as short as those of the unfortunates who succeeded Nero before Vespasian.  I suppose it may be he does because he had so little time and did so little harm, or had the wisdom to accept Trajan as a successor.  Others may be uncertain why Hadrian has the place he does.

Some of those others are likely to be Jews.  It was during Hadrian's reign that the second great Jewish revolt against Rome took place, and it was an even fiercer affair than the first, lasting about three years.  Under Bar Kokhba the Jews had considerable success, at first.  Success against Rome "at first" was not all that unusual during the time of its greatness; consider Hannibal's many successes.  But Rome, once thwarted, was relentless, ruthless and efficient in retribution, and Hadrian's legions eventually nearly exterminated the Jewish people.  It's thought by some that Hadrian brought the revolt about because he sided so much with the Greeks in their several disputes with the Jews throughout the Empire and because for reasons not entirely clear to me at least he insisted on imposing a Greco-Roman city on Jerusalem, Aelia Capitolina.  This colony was placed more or less over the site of the Jews' ancient Temple, which had been conveniently razed by the Romans in the first revolt.  It's difficult to imagine conduct more likely to enrage the Jewish people.

Hadrian certainly was a great fan of the Greeks and Greek culture, but not quite in the scandalous manner of Nero.  Hadrian didn't pretend to be an actor or a musician, but tried, sometimes, to be a poet.  He would put on Greek dress when in Greece, and was most comfortable when among the Greeks.  And, of course, he was inordinately fond of a particular Greek from Bithynia named Antinous.

The Romans were not as concerned by homosexual relationships as many of us are, though they never seemed to idealize such relationships in the manner of the Greeks; except, perhaps, in the case of the Hellenophile Hadrian.  Antinous died during one of Hadrian's many tours of the Empire, while in Egypt, in the Nile itself, and the circumstances of his death are unclear.  It's been suggested that Hadrian had a hand in the death, or that Antinous killed himself in an effort to secure the health and safety of the aging and increasingly superstitious and death-obsessed emperor.  However, it may simply have been an accident.  What was most remarkable about Antinous was not his death but his worship after his death.

Emperors had been becoming gods on their deaths for some time by then, and in some cases were worshipped as such before their deaths, sometimes in association with the genius or spirit of Rome.  But an emperor's favorite had not been deified for some time, since the reign of Gaius Caligula, who was deemed insane by most who came after him.  Temples to Antinous and statutes of him increased and multiplied throughout the Empire.  It seems some actually took his worship seriously and his worship continued for quite some time.

So why this homage to an emperor who it seems went mad on the death of his lover, like Alexander did on the death of his (or perhaps in imitation of Alexander), and was stupid enough to profane the holiest ground of some of the least cooperative of Rome's many conquered peoples, leading to a great revolt brutally suppressed?

Well, but for the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Empire enjoyed uninterrupted peace during Hadrian's principate.  He wisely withdrew from the territories newly conquered by Trajan which would have been very hard to maintain, and this probably facilitated and extended the pax Romana to the benefit of all inhabitants of the Empire.  He was a multi-talented individual, and in his fashion remarkable as an architect, being responsible for the still-impressive Pantheon, his incredible villa in Tivoli, his wall in Scotland.  He could have taken credit for these achievements in the way typical of emperors and others who caused monuments to be built--by having his name inscribed in the stone--but did not do so.  The name of Marcus Agrippa, who was responsible for the original Pantheon, appears there instead.  He was concerned with all parts of the Empire as his travels showed.  And he assured a safe transfer of power, choosing a solid successor in Antoninus Pius and even assuring that Marcus Aurelius would one day succeed him, thus providing for the rule of two more "Good Emperors."

An unusual and extraordinary man, worthy of respect despite his flaws, in spite of his flaws.