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[54 STEPHEN BRUNET
I. Historical References (listed chronologically: all dates are A.D.)
I. The report in Dio (61.17.3-4) and Tacitus (Ann. 15.32.3) that Nero
induced women of the highest rank to debase themselves in the arena. It
is not clear if their disgrace took the form of performing as gladiators.
fighting as venatores. or both. Tacitus does not address the point. and
while fighting as gladiators and hunting animals are both included in
Dio's list of the many shows in which upper-class men and women performed.
it would have been helpful if he ha been more explicit about
whether women took part in all the entertainments staged by Nero. Dio
and Tacitus are also not as clear as we might like regarding how Nero
obtained the participation of noblewomen. and they even seem at first
to be somewhat at odds on this question. 30 Dio notes that some of the
men and women who publicly disgraced themselves did so unwillingly.
while the participation of others was voluntary (61.17.3). Tacitus opts
for the view that coercion. albeit of a very su tie form. was the principle
that underlay the participation in Nero's games by members of the
upper class. This is not apparent from 15.32.3. where he says nothing
about the process by which noblewomen were led to appear in the
arena. But in 14.14.6 he notes that Nero induced various members of the
equestrian order to contract their services as gladiators (operas arenae
promittere) by the offer of huge rewards and then comments that they
really had no choice in the matter since such rewards were tantamount
to an order when they came from as powerful a person as Nero. In the
end Dio probably would have agreed with Tacitus' assessment that free
choice was largely an illusion in an environment where the emperor
was desperate to cloak his own desire to perform publicly by making
others do the same. Particularly telling is his description of how many
members of the Roman nobility desperately practiced whatever theatrical
art they could so that they had some form of entertainment to offer
Nero when asked and could in this way avoid eing assigned to sing in
his choruses (61.19.2-3). We are thus left to wonder if the same situation
obtained for many or all of the women who. according to Dio. fought in
the arena voluntarily. On the surface their participation may have been
voluntary since Nero did not have to order them to perform. but in a
true sense they would never have performed publicly of their own accord.
The most important disagreement between the two authors. however.
is over the date of Nero's misdeed. Dio co nects it with the games
given in 59 upon Agrippina's death, while Tacitus attributes it to 63. Yet
there are good reasons to think that this discrepancy arose because
30 On the means used by various emperors to have members of the senatorial
and equestrian orders appear in their games. see Ville (above. n. 7) 261.