When comparing Suetonius’s treatment of the Roman emperors Augustus and Nero, one sees a clear contrast. Suetonius paints Nero as a self-involved imitator of Augustus who ultimately fails to live up to the first emperor.
The divinity of the two rulers stands out in Suetonius’s work. Suetonius refers to Augustus as divine many times in his biography. Suetonius even had a statue of Augustus when he was a boy. The “Lives of the Twelve Emperors” does not mention Nero as having descended from the God’s once. This may not seem important, but the divine link of the Emperors to the Gods played an integral role in their right to rule. Not pointing out Nero’s divinity denies that he was a rightful ruler.
During Augustus’s reign there was peace throughout the empire. Augustus did wage war, but not for conquest. There were noble reasons behind his battles. Augustus fought to punish those involved in Julius’s murder and then to quell the second civil war brought by Antony. Nero ruined the peace and breadth of the empire established by previous rulers. After being emperor for fourteen years, Gaul, Galba, and Spain declared war against him.
he received intelligence that Galba and the
Spaniards had declared against him; upon which, he fainted, and losing
his reason, lay a long time speechless, apparently dead. As soon as
recovered from this state stupefaction he tore his clothes, and beat his
head, crying out, “It is all over with me!” His nurse endeavouring to
comfort him, and telling him that the like things had happened to other
princes before him, he replied, “I am beyond all example wretched, for I
have lost an empire whilst I am still living.” He, nevertheless, abated
nothing of his luxury and inattention to business.
Nero could not even keep his composure and deal with the issues confronting the empire. Also of note, Nero laments losing the empire while still alive, yet he gives up none of his extravagancies to deal with these matters.
According to Suetonius, Augustus’s ruled Rome benevolently and worked to better life for Rome and it’s people. Augustus won the people’s hearts by performing good works and improving their lives, not just holding games and extravagancies. Augustus donated money to the people. He also allowed them to purchase corn at reduced rates, or even gave it away free, when money was short.
Nero attempted to follow Augustus’s example, but failed. Nero provided games and events for the people. He lowered taxes and returned public prayer, something Augustus would have approved of. Suetonius admits that Nero had few praises to sing. “These transactions, in part unexceptionable, and in part highly commendable, I have brought into one view, in order to separate them from the scandalous
and criminal part of his conduct, of which I shall now give an account.”
Pride was the first of Nero’s crimes. Nero’s main concern was his legacy. He changed the month of April to Neroneus and was even bold enough to suggest Rome be renamed Neropolis. Nero valued his opinion over all others. He ignored the advice of wiser men and was often condescending to them.
He always addressed the judges with the most profound reverence before he began, telling them, “he had done all things that were necessary, by way of
preparation, but that the issue of the approaching trial was in the hand
of fortune; and that they, as wise and skilful men, ought to exclude from
their judgment things merely accidental.”
Where Augustus was frugal in his personal spending and intelligent in his city planning, Nero was wasteful and extravagant. Augustus kept his home modestly furnished. His everyday garments were fashioned by his wife and daughters. A humble home did not suit Nero. During his reign, Nero commissioned a gigantic palace to be constructed. Suetonius said of size of the palace, “the porch was so high
that there stood in it a colossal statue of himself a hundred and twenty
feet in height; and the space included in it was so ample, that it had
triple porticos a mile in length, and a lake like a sea, surrounded with
buildings which had the appearance of a city”
Nero’s cruelty truly set him apart from Augustus. Augustus was without his rash moments and Suetonius admits this. The emperor was paranoid, justly so, of assassins. Augustus sentenced many to death on suspicion of assassination. Nero’s violence went beyond self-preservation to psychotic levels. Nero wander Rome at night under disguise, drinking, beating those he found walking, and robbing shops, selling the stolen goods and his own auctions.
Augustus’s sexual life was no secret. Suetonius does no hide that Augustus visited prostitutes and was adulterous at times. Nero’s sexuality, like his penchant for violence, was perverse and disgusting. Nero raped Rubria, a Vestal Virgin. This shows how little he cared for tradition and sacred things. Nero’s insatiable appetite for new sexual experiences led him to horrific perversities.
He prostituted his own chastity to such a degree, that (358) after
he had defiled every part of his person with some unnatural pollution, he
at last invented an extraordinary kind of diversion; which was, to be let
out of a den in the arena, covered with the skin of a wild beast, and
then assail with violence the private parts both of men and women, while
they were bound to stakes.
Psychological problems plagued Nero. He was the last in the line of those who tainted the Julio-Claudian name that Augustus had begun. Suetonius chastises Nero, pulling no punches for his atrocious behavior. Augustus’s failings can be forgiven for he truly had the people of Rome in his heart and mind. Nero’s only concern was securing his own legacy and placating his own ego, even at the expense of the Roman people.
