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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
In his account of Nero's last months Suetonius describes the various ways in which the emperor, after he heard the news that Galba had decided to take on the leadership of Vindex’ revolt, tried to raise troops and to extract money from the inhabitants of Rome. On top of all this, so says the biographer, Nero incurred invidia by profiteering from the high price of grain, and this invidia grew greater because it happened too that while the inhabitants were suffering from hunger, news came that a grain ship from Alexandria had arrived carrying nothing but sand for the court wrestlers (Nero 45.1: ‘ex annonae quoque caritate lucranti adcrevit invidia; nam et forte accidit, ut in publica fame Alexandrina navis nuntiaretur pulverem luctatoribus aulicis advexisse’). Although this episode undoubtedly belongs in 68, there is little to be said for the argument, now generally accepted, that this shortage of grain was caused by L. Clodius Macer, legionary legate of Africa Proconsularis. As I hope to show, the dearth resulted from Nero's own attempts at self-defence.
1 Since Suetonius’ expression is condensed, the linkage between the two clauses may not be immediately apparent from a literal translation: Nero incurred invidia by profiteering in grain also (quoque, i.e. in addition to the actions described in chapter 44), and this grew (adcrevit) because (nam) it happened that the announcement of the ship's arrival also (et) occurred at this time. So, though loading the ship with wrestling sand was never part of Nero's plan to profiteer, it was so taken by the people. Pliny, N.H. 35. 167–8 mentions the importation of such sand by Nero's freedman Patrobius, while its use is elucidated by Reinmuth, O. W., Phoenix 21 (1967), 191–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 The case is argued in detail by Bradley, K. R., ‘A publica fames in a.d. 68’, AJPh 93 (1972), 451–8.Google Scholar See also Warmington, B. H., Nero: Reality and Legend (New York, 1969), 57Google Scholar; Gallotta, B., RIL 109 (1975), 28ff.Google Scholar, esp. 38; Wellesley, K., The Long Year a.d. 69 (London, 1975), 6 and 219Google Scholar, n. 5; Bessone, L., RSA 9 (1979), 45ff.Google Scholar; Griffin, M. T., Nero: the End of a Dynasty (New Haven, CT and London, 1985), 109, 181.Google Scholar
3 Witness the phrasing Suetonius uses in his report of the tale that Caesar promised his troops equestrian status (Jul. 33: ‘quod accidit opinione falsa’, etc.). Not that it would affect my argument if the annoucement were false. Even if the ship never existed, we would still have to determine the time of year at which the fabrication would have had its fullest effect, and that would have coincided with the date at which such a ship could dock in reality.
4 Meiggs, R., Roman Ostia2 (Oxford, 1973), 50, 56–7.Google Scholar
5 So Bradley (n. 2), 452. For the normal date of the Alexandrian fleet's arrival see Casson, L., Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1971), 297–8Google Scholar; Rickman, G., The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1980), 130.Google Scholar
6 See especially Seneca, E. M. 77.1–2; Casson (n. 5), 297, n. 2; Rickman (n. 5), 70–1, 130.
7 On the capacity of the Alexandrian ships see below, note 23. At this stage the praefectus annonae cannot have had the power even in a crisis to seize all grain coming into Rome (cf. Rickman [n. 5], 87ff.), but Nero could perhaps have closed down every granary in the city, as Caligula is supposed once to have done (Suet. Cal. 26.5).
8 Henderson, B. W., The Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero (London, 1903), 409Google Scholar: ‘Men's anger… rose to fever heat.’
9 Suetonius uses invidia nineteen more times in the Caesares and once at De rhet. 6.2. He qualifies it with an adjective only four times (Aug. 27.3, Cal. 56.1, Galb. 16.1, De rhet. 6.2; but compare also Claud. 38.1, Titus 6.2). Usually he treats it as a known quantity (cf Jul. 14.1 and 84.2, Aug. 71.1, Tib. 8 and 22; Cal. 9, Nero 34.1, Otho 6.1), which can be diminished (Jul. 4.1, Nero 33.2, Vesp. 23.1, Dom. 11.3) or, less commonly, increased (Tib. 75.3).
10 For parallels see Casson (n. 5), 98, n. 6 and Rickman (n. 5), 131–2.
11 see Mouchovà, B., Studie zu Kaiserbiographien Suetons (Prague, 1968), 55–6, 96Google Scholar; Cizek, E., Structures et idéologie dans ‘Les Vies des Douze Césars’ de Suétone (Bucharest and Paris, 1977) 56ff.Google Scholar (esp. 60) and 223. The same view appears to underlie the discussions by Gugel, H., Studien zur biographischen Technik Suetons (Vienna, Koln, and Graz, 1977), 57ff.Google Scholar and Gascou, J., Suéton historien (Paris and Rome, 1984), 789–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 See especially Bradley, K. R., Suetonius’ Life of Nero. An Historical Commentary (Brussels, 1978), 240–1Google Scholar, based—in turn—on the discussion in Bradley (n. 2), 451ff.
13 Bradley (n. 2), 452, having asserted that the contents of chapter 44 ‘were independently researched and catalogued by Suetonius’, declares that ‘the present passage is slightly misplaced, for in itself it has no direct reference to any deterrent action’, and claims that its purpose is ‘to reflect discredit on Nero through insistence on the inefficacy of his precautionary activities’. This begs the question, so long as the reasons for which Nero was raising the money are left unexplained (below, note 19).
14 Since Bradley (n. 12), 263 concedes that §2 may be chronological after all, only §1 needs extended discussion.
15 Bradley (n. 12), 258–9; cf. Warmington, B. H., Suetonius: Nero (Bristol, 1977), 110Google Scholar; Gallivan, P. A., Historia 23 (1974), 315–16.Google Scholar
16 Suetonius, Nero 42.1; cf. Plutarch, Galb. 5.3; Orosius 7.7.13. For the date of Galba's announcement, between April 2 and 6, see Fluss, RE4A (1932), 778; Raoss, M., Epigraphica 22 (1960), 53Google Scholar, n. 3.
17 Stein, RE9 (1916), 820. Editions of the Nero, like PIR2 I.16, either leave the meaning of the passage unclear or ignore it altogether.
18 see Shorter, D. C. A., Historia 24 (1975), 66–7.Google Scholar
19 Bradley (n. 2), 451 leaves open the question how or why Nero profiteered from the high price of grain, while Warmington (n. 15), 111 and Gallivan (n. 15), 316 confess themselves unable to explain it. See further below.
20 With the African, as with the Alexandrian ships, docking and unloading could be two distinct processes: see especially Casson (n. 5), 298, n. 5.
21 That the Baetis valley in eastern Spain was already producing surplus grain is shown by Claudius’ recalling and expelling from the senate in 44 the governor of Baetica, Umbonius Silio, for his failure to send sufficient grain to the troops operating in Mauretania (Dio 60.24.5; cf. Van Nostrand, J. J., An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome 3 [Baltimore, 1937], 175–6).Google Scholar For Sardinia and Sicily, see Rickman (n. 5), 83, 104ff. If there were disturbances in Sicily in 68 (Raoss [n. 16], 72), they need not have interfered with the grain supply. There is also the possibility that grain was brought in from other regions of Italy, although this most likely happened only when provincial supplies failed or were otherwise held up: see Morley, N., Metropolis and Hinterland (Cambridge, 1996), 147–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
22 Against the mechanical combining of the Epit. de Caes. 1.6 and Josephus, BJ 2.383, see especially Rickman (n. 5), 231–5.
23 The best discussion of the problems involved in computing the capacity of the Alexandrian clippers is that of Rougé, J., Recherches sur l'organisation du commerce maritime en Méditerranée sous l'empire romain (Paris, 1966), 66–73.Google Scholar For the African ships, see Rougé (ibid.), 72 and Rickman (n. 5), 17.
24 Cf. Meijer, F. J., Mnemosyne 37 (1984), 117–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25 Ships from Africa were organized into a fleet only by Commodus: see SHA, Comm. 17.7; Meiggs (n. 4), 79. In the fourth century African ships were also forbidden to depart before 1 April, but this proves only that previously they had been leaving earlier: cf. Tengström, E., Bread for the People (Stockholm, 1974), 39ff.Google Scholar; Sirks, B., Food for Rome (Amsterdam, 1991), 42–3.Google Scholar
26 For the detailed arguments, see the concluding paragraphs of this paper.
27 As is remarked by Bessone (n. 2), 43–4, doubts about this passage are voiced only by scholars who cannot fit it into their reconstruction of events.
28 Some modern scholars think Calvia Crispinilla Nero's ally, others his enemy; some set her trip to Africa before the emperor's death in early June, others after it. Since my one concern is to sever any links between the publica fames and Macer's actions, I have deliberately passed over problems that do not affect the immediate argument (Macer's uprising and Calvia Crispinilla's part in it I discuss in detail elsewhere).
29 Cf. Sirago, V. A., Vichiana 7 (1978), 304Google Scholar, albeit to support a very different argument. Whether Calvia Crispinilla already owned extensive properties in Histria (Sirago 296–7), she had become notorious for her avarice during Nero's trip to Greece (Dio-Xiphilinus 63.12.3–4).
30 The suggestion o f Bradley (n. 2), 455, that Calvia Crispinilla survived the perils of 69 by ‘espousal of an insurrectionist cause’, and so (ibid., 456–7) that she left for Africa ‘well before the death of Nero’, is a hypothesis designed mainly to permit the conclusion that Macer's uprising, at her instigation, ‘probably began at the very end of March’. However attractive this may appear in abstract, it ignores both the realities with which she had to contend at Nero's court and the seeming strength of the emperor's position before Vesontio.
31 Cf.Shotter (n. 18), 70.
32 Since legion III Augusta is first attested at Theveste in 76 (CIL 11.10119), it seems generally to be agreed that Ammaedara was its headquarters until the middle of Vespasian's reign: cf. Romanelli, P., Storia dette province Romane dell'Africa (Rome, 1959), 186, 293Google Scholar; Rachet, M., Rome et les Berbères (Brussels, 1970), 152Google Scholar, n. 2; Duval, N., ANRW 2.10.2 (1982), 638–9.Google Scholar There would have been little point in Calvia Crispinilla's appealing to the proconsul in Carthage (perhaps T. Curtilius Mancia). If the latter had at his disposal an urban cohort, its primary task was no doubt the same as that of the cohorts Claudius had placed at Ostia and Puteoli, to guard against fires (Suet. Claud. 25.2: ‘ad arcendos incendiorum casus’). But a cohort may not yet have been stationed in Carthage: see Freis, H., Die Cohortes Urbcmae (Köln and Graz, 1967), 31ff.Google Scholar
33 In one sense Macer's task need not have been especially difficult. Although African grain could be shipped from any number of harbours (see Haywood, R. M., An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome 4 [Baltimore, 1938], 69–70)Google Scholar, in Nero's reign the bulk of it seems to have been grown in the lower Bagradas valley and dispatched through Carthage (cf. Tacitus, Hist. 4.38).
34 Calvia Crisptnilla probably required three or four weeks to carry out her mission, but for the sake of argument I have assumed that each step in the process took minimal time: hence one day for her to find a ship, 3–4 days to sail to Africa, another 3–4 days to travel overland to Ammaedara, one day for her to convince Macer and for him to ready the troops for their march, and five days for the men to cover the 165–70 miles to Carthage.
35 The twelve passages are Jul. 68.2;Aug. 14, 16.1, and 70.2;Tib. 52.2 and 54.2; Cal. 26.5 and 31; Nero 36.2 and 48.4; Galb. 7.2; Otho 9.1. See also Garnsey, P., Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World (Cambridge, 1988), 18ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36 In such a situation, as Rickman (n. 5), 144 and Garnsey (n. 35), 32ff. remark, the poor may have starved, but there was hardly a famine. Despite Warmington (n. 15), 111, Suetonius’ testimony is not contradicted by Tacitus, Hist. 1.89.1. He, talking of the situation in Rome on the eve of Otho's departure for the north in March 69, states only that the people suffered appreciably more than they had motu Vindicis (cf. Garnsey [n. 35], 224).
37 Gallotta (n. 2), 44ff. argues, unpersuasively, against Dio's statement that Nero suspended the frumentationes.
38 Augustus, R.G. 18. There is no knowing how much grain was held in reserve at any point in Nero's reign. Although Septimius Severus is said to have left a seven years’ reserve on his death (SHA, Sep. Sev. 8.5), quantities must obviously have been much lower in the first century if, in crises, the reserve could be figured in days, seven or eight in 41 (Seneca, De brev. vitae 18.5), fifteen in 51 (Tacitus, Ann. 12.43.2), and ten in 70 (Tacitus, Hist. 4.52.2: see below).
39 Tacitus, Ann. 15.18.2, reporting that the Romans lost 200 ships in a storm at Ostia and another 100 to fire on the Tiber. Although Casson, L., JRS 55 (1965), 33Google Scholar, n. 20 and 36, n. 47 takes all 300 to have been river boats, those caught in the storm may well have been sea-going vessels (cf. Meiggs [n. 4], 58–9; Griffin [n. 2], 106). There is no telling what percentage this represents of the total shipping involved, but the absence of any problems with the grain supply in the following years suggests—despite the doubts of Garnsey (n. 35), 224—either that the losses had little effect or that they were swiftly made good.
40 Sallust, Hist. 2.98.2. The thought was hardly new: as Polybius 6.15.4 observed, armies require a constant flow of grain, clothing, and pay, and Vegetius 3.3 expatiates on the subject. The link between grain and troops is recognized by Garnsey (n. 35), 228, but the broad scope of his work hardly allows him to apply it specifically to the incidents under discussion here.
41 Cf. Chilver, G. E. F., A Historical Commentary on Tacitus” Histories’ I and II (Oxford, 1979), 7–8Google Scholar; Shotter (n. 18), 67–8.
42 Warmington (n. 15), 111. Although Cisalpine Gaul was the most fertile part o f Italy, the evidence suggests that its farmers were producing grain for local consumption only (Chilver, G. E. F., Cisalpine Gaul [Oxford, 1941], 135–6Google Scholar; cf. Rickman (n. 5), 101–2; Morley fn. 21], 148). Hence the claim of Suetonius Paulinus, just before First Bedriacum, that if the Othonians refused to give battle, the Vitellian forces opposing them would be unable to sustain themselves for long in the Transpadana (Tacitus, Hist. 2.32.1; cf. Suetonius, Otho 9.1).
43 Dio 56.12.1; cf. Garnsey (n. 35), 228.
44 On I Adiutrix, see e. g. Miller, H. P., G&R 28 (1981), 73ff.Google Scholar
45 Seneca, De brev. vitae 18.5 claims that there were supplies only for 7–8 days at the time of Caligula's murder, this on 24 January, so that fames impended. Although he attributes the shortage to the disruption of grain supplies caused by Caligula's bridge of boats (cf. Dio 59.17.2), the claim is obviously absurd (Balsdon, J. P. V. D., The Emperor Gaius [Oxford, 1934], 189–90Google Scholar; Barrett, A. A., Caligula: the Corruption of Power [London, 1989], 194–5; Garnsey [n. 35], 222–3). What is important is that Seneca considers a shortage so early in the year to be abnormal. Similarly, the dearth in Claudius’ reign was accounted a prodigy by some (Tacitus, Ann. 12.43.1). Who sent for the supplies in 69/70 is uncertain (below, note 54).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
46 Tacitus, Hist. 1.86.2. Since he talks of peniuria alimentorum, there was some grain to be had, presumably stored in Ostia and Puteoli.
47 On the composition of Otho's forces, see Chilver (n. 41), 175–6,269ff.
48 Tacitus, Hist. 2.87.1–2 waxes eloquent on the swathe of destruction the Vitellian forces cut through Italy as they marched south, but once he has them in Rome, he dwells on the health problems they suffered, not on any supply difficulties they caused to others (ibid., 93.1). Tacitus also says (ibid., 87.1) that the troops alone numbered 60,000: if each of them required 4–5 modii of grain per month (cf. Rickman [n. 5], 10 and literature cited therein), they could have consumed between 480,000 and 600,000 modii during their stay.
49 On the second run, see the literature cited in note 5 above. This is considered the main reason for the shortage by Le Bonniec, H. and Hellegouarc'h, J., Tacite, Histoires, Livres IV et V (Paris, 1992), 149Google Scholar, n. 6.
50 The news of Macer's assassination reached Rome around the time Galba entered the city, i.e. in September 68: see Tacitus, Hist.1.7.1; Plutarch, Galb. 15.3; Suetonius, Galb. 11; Chilver (n. 41), 56–7.
51 There are problems with the text. The Mediceus reads ‘fracto… exercitus’, fractos being an emendation by Meiser. Although there is a parallel for such an error at Hist. 4.33.1, where the Mediceus reads intento hostis for intentos hostis, some editors (Orelli, Valmaggi, and Wellesley, for example) prefer to retain fracto and emend to exercitu. This, however, requires a further emendation, in that the -que attached to urbem later in the clause must be modified to quoque (the reading of the deteriores).
52 Tacitus, Hist. 2.82.3; at that point ‘Vespasianum obtinere claustra Aegypti placuit’.
53 Exactly when Mucianus entered Rome is uncertain, but it must have been in the last days of December 69 or the first days of January 70: see Josephus, BJ 4.654 and Tacitus, Hist. 4.10.1.
54 Since Tacitus in our passage talks of the African ships’ being delayed by the saevitia maris in January 70, they were probably supposed to bring in emergency supplies. But given the speed with which voyages to and from Africa could be made (above, note 24), there is no knowing whether the supplies were intended originally for Vitellius’ forces, those falling back on Rome from the north and those the emperor himself raised in the city, or if the Flavians sent for them once they gained control of the city.
55 Rickman (n. 5), 81–2, 219–20.
56 See especially D'escurac, H. Pavis, La Prefecture de l'annone, service administratif impérial d'Auguste à Constantin (Rome, 1976), 323.Google Scholar
57 Since Mucianus was capable of such cunning, it is also likely that Varus’ attempts to carry out his new duties were meant to cost him some of the popularity he had enjoyed previously with the troops. It is unfortunate, therefore, that we cannot determine how long he remained praefectus annonae. His being close to Domitian (Tacitus, Hist. 4.68.2) is not likely to have endeared him to Vespasian or Titus, but the pernicies which befell him later (Tacitus, Hist. 3.6.1) was clearly not demotion on this occasion.
58 There is no good reason to accept the view, advanced by Heubner, H., P. Cornelius Tacitus, Die Historien, Band IV: Viertes Buch (Heidelberg, 1976), 124Google Scholar and repeated by Le Bonniec and Hellegouarc'h (n. 49), 149, n. 5, that the words saevo adhuc mari rule out an arrival date in February. The ships would have needed to make very good time to reach Rome before the end of that month, but Tacitus’ phrasing tells us only that he did not know, or chose not to give, a precise date for the ships’ departure from Alexandria.
59 I wish to thank the editor, Professor J. S. Richardson, and the anonymous referee for their many helpful criticisms and suggestions.
