* Corbulo and Suetonius Paulinus, the two ablest generals of their day, were sent, the former in 55 to repel the Parthians, the latter in 58 to complete the subjugation of Britain.
¢ Apart from this incident, there is no actual evidence that the ancient Romans were acquainted with any poison which, after double dilution, could have caused instantaneous death or sudden lividness, as related by Tacitus. Undoubtedly, however, 8 distillation from the leaves of the cherry-laurel, which might then have been obtained from Asia Minor, would have produced the effect desired (Burnett's Med, Bot. ii. 117).
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this record bristle with improbabilities: (a) the secret preparation of a vessel which would suddenly fall to pieces, without the majonty of the seamen knowing what would happen; (Ὁ) the hardened emperor caressing the mother whose murder he had arranged, and clinging fondly to her bosom ; (c) the virtuous Burrus and Seneca joining in the crime with a calculating callousness worse than that ascribed to Nero himself. (d) Suetonius adds that Nero had thrice previously tried to poison Agrippina, who had fortified herself beforehand with antidotes! It is not improbable that Nero, under Poppea’s influence, believed in his mother’s conspiracy against the existing administration ; that in the midst of a nocturnal debauch he ordered her violent arrest; and that in the con- flict occasioned by her resistance she was killed.
The death of Burrus, in 62 (not without some suspicion of poison, Tac. Ann. xiv. 5), relieved Poppa of another obstacle to her ambition ; and the appointment of Tigellinus as prefect of the pretorians in his stead provided her with a willing accomplice and Nero with another evil genius—a fresh instigator to vice as well as crime. Imperial orgies became viler and more shameless. Influential senators were removed from Rome and assassinated (Tac. Ann. xiv. 57, 59): Seneca, in despair, with- drew into private life (i+. 53-56). Poppza’s time had come. Octavia, through perjured witness promannced ilty of infidelity, was divorced,
nished, and finally murdered (Tac. xiv. 60-64). Poppwa was espoused, and before tlie close of the year, on the birth of a daugliter (who died in infancy), received the title of Augusta. The un- bounded extravagance which the empress and Tigellinus encouraged led to financial embarrass- ments. These were relieved by charges of treason (followed by confiscation) against wealthy citizens, through which the upper classes were exasperated ; and by oppressive taxation, which made Nero un- popular even among those who would have toler- ated his crimes ; while the emperor’s exhibition of himself upon the stage, however acceptable to the lowest class, and publicly applauded, excited much private disgust (Tac. xiv. 14, 15).
Before this time Nero’s relations with the Christians had begun. St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, with its favourable reference to the Rete that be’ (13), had been written during the first quinquennium, to which also belongs the charge of superstitio externa (supposed by some to be Christianity) against Pomponia Grecina, wife of Aulus Plautius (Tac. Ann. xiii. 32; de Rossi, Roma Sotter. ii. 360ff.; cf. Lightf. Clement, i. 30 ff.). The apostle’s arrival in Rome took place, puberty, soon after semepinals death (see art.
HRONOLOGY OF NT in vol. i. p. 424); his mild imprisonment, tolerated evangelization, and earlier trial, issuing in acquittal (according to the common theory), belong to the period of Poppwa’s ascend- ency. That St. Paul was tried by Nero in person, although not certain, is highly probable; for, amid much carelessness, the emperor was par- ticular in his attention to appeals from the pro- vinces in criminal cases. He received from ig of his assessors a written opinion, and pronounced sentence personally from the tribunal on the fol- lowing day (Suet. Nero, 15; cf. Tac. Ann. xiii. 4) Poppea had leanings towards Judaism, is de- scribed by Josephus (Ant. XX. viii. 11) as θεοσεβής, and twice interceded with Nero on behalf of Jews (Jos. 1.5. and Vita, 3). She may not, however, have concerned herself with St. Paul’s case ; and, in the absence of any powerful antagonistic influ- ence at court, the PA a of Festus would tell strongly in the apostle’s favour. The intervention of Seneca, the brother of Gallio (indicated in the apocryphal Passio Pauli, i.), is no more than
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sible.* Up to the time of Gallio’s proconsul- p (i.¢. A.D. 52-3 or 53-4), and probably for some urs afterwards, the Roman government regarded Christians, apparently, as only a sect of Jews. The trial at Rome of a Christian who was also civis Romanus may have been, as Seta | suggests (Expositor, July 1893), the occasion of a more thorough investigation which enlightened the im- perial authorities as to the true relation between Christianity and Judaism.
In A.D. 64 the tolerant attitude of Nero’s government towards Christianity was suddenly transformed into cruel hostility. In July of that year took place the great fire at Rome, which raged for nine days, and through which, out of fourteen civic districts, three were orally and seven partially, destroyed. Nero was at Antium when the conflagration broke out. The measures taken by the government for the suppression of the fire (Tac. Ann. xy. 40) ; his own fearless super- vision of these efforts without a guard (ἐδ. 50); and the oceurrence of the disaster at a time when the im- perial finances were seriously embarrassed, render it highly improbable that Nero either instigated or deliberately extended the conflagration. But he probably gave occasion for the charge of com- plicity, which was widely believed at the time,t by previous sanitation reforms, laudable but keenly opposed (Lanciani, Anc. Rome, p. 122), unbecoming admiration of the magnificence of the spectacle, ill-disguised pleasure at the opportunity of re- building large portions of the city in a more magnificent style, and the significant annexation of a considerable part of the desolated area for the erection of his ‘Golden House.’t The fact, more- over, that the flames, after temporary arrest, broke out afresh in the gardens of Tigellinus, gave some colour to the suspicion that if he had nothing to do with the original fire, he might, nevertheless, have caused the second outbreak (Tac. Ann. xy. 40).§ The common belief in Nero’s guilt, and the danger of revolution, owing to