Sixteen Years and Ten Months — Nero: Artist on the Throne, Rome in Flames
Sixteen years and ten months. That is the age of the boy who will walk out of the palace gates on October 13, AD 54, as master of half the world. And his mother has long known that he will one day kill her.
This is Agrippina the Younger: great-granddaughter of Augustus, sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius, who is her uncle. She has known the prophecy for years. Tacitus recorded that when astrologers told her that her son would become emperor but would kill his mother, she answered in a single sentence. Historians still quote it today.
That is the kind of woman she is. In October AD 54 she stakes everything she has built over twenty years on a single throw. Her husband, Emperor Claudius, is sixty-three and in the last hours of his life. The previous episode ended with his dinner. Here we only recall what the sources say about that night, and what historians say.
On the morning of October 13 Claudius is dead, but Rome does not know it. Tacitus describes how Agrippina keeps the secret. She seals the palace and posts guards at every entrance. The consuls and priests pray in the Senate for the emperor’s health, while she spreads word that the sick man is feeling better. She clings to Britannicus, the dead man’s natural son, as if in despair, calls him the living image of his father, and will not let him leave his chamber. She detains his sisters in the same way.
Why all this? According to Tacitus, Agrippina is waiting for the hour the astrologers declared lucky. Between the palace and the Praetorian camp lies all of Rome and one question: whom will the soldiers want as emperor? Britannicus is thirteen and Claudius’s true son. Nero is sixteen and only an adopted one. Now it is your turn.
Agrippina did what she did. She waited. Tacitus writes that at noon the palace gates suddenly opened and Nero came out, with the praetorian prefect Burrus beside him. The cohort on guard cheers at the signal of its commander. Tacitus adds a sentence that says everything about that day: some of the soldiers hesitated, looked around and asked where Britannicus was. When no one took the lead in opposing it, they accepted what was offered. Suetonius gives the hour: between the sixth and seventh hour, because earlier the omens were bad.
Nero is carried in a litter to the camp, speaks briefly, promises the same donative his stepfather gave, and is hailed as emperor. The Senate confirms what the soldiers have done. Claudius’s will was not read in public, because it favored his stepson over his son, and that might have stirred up the people. Nero did not hide afterward that his stepfather’s death suited him: he praised mushrooms as “the food of the gods,” since after eating them Claudius became a god. So Suetonius and Dio recorded.
A few days later he delivers the funeral oration. Seneca wrote it, and you can tell. As long as the speech praises the dead man’s family and victories, everyone listens gravely. When it comes to his intelligence and insight, Tacitus notes that no one could hold back laughter. Older Romans also notice something else: Nero is the first emperor who needs another man’s pen. Caesar rivaled the greatest orators. This boy has been sculpting, painting, singing and driving horses since childhood.
Soon after Nero takes power, the tribune of the Guard comes for the night’s watchword. The emperor always chooses it. Nero says two words: “Optima mater.” The best of mothers.
For Agrippina this is the peak of her triumph. She has less than five years left.