Before Jerusalem Fell

72 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
Titus, disparages Nero and extols Titus:
Here where the heavenly CO1OSSUS has a close view
of the stars
And high structures rise on the lofty road
There once shone the hated hall of the cruel king
And one house took up the whole of Rome.
Here where rises the huge mass of the awesome
amphitheatre
In sight of all was Nero’s pool.
A proud park deprived the poor of their houses.
Where the Claudian temple spreads its wide shade
Stood the last part of the palace.
Rome is returned to herself and under your rule,
Caesar,
The delights of their master have become those of
the people.32
Thus, biblical scholar Merrill C. Tenney speaks scathingly of the
notorious evil of Nero: “Having exhausted the imperial treasury by
his heedless expenditures, he looked for some method of replenishing
it. Heavy taxation of the estates of childless couples, false accusations
followed by confiscation of wealth, and outright murder of the aristocracy
or else invitation to suicide made life unbearable. Wealthy men
lived in dread of the emperor’s displeasure, and so great was the
terror that the senatorial class endured unimaginable insults and
mistreatment as the price of staying alive. Men betrayed their best
ftiends, perjured themselves, and stooped to any infamy to aver the
emperor’s hatred or cupidity.”3 3
Historian B. W. Henderson writes
in a similar vein, and adds regarding Nero’s memory:
And now [i.e., in Vespasian’s reign] begins that systematic disparagement
of Nero which consciously or unconsciously colours the whole
of our extant records, as has been already explained. The farther, too,
that the traveller recedes the darker looks the air behind him, and the
historic mist has at once such obscuring and such magni~ing power
that the writers of the Flavian age devoted little care to recovering the
true outlines of Nero’s portrait, or considering the great background
32. Martial, Book of Spectacles 2.
33. Men-ill C. Tenney, New T~tament Tim-s (Chicago: Moody, 1965, p. 289).