Rome did many things well: sculpture, architecture, infrastructure, identity politics via ritual combat, et cetera. But perhaps there was no art closer to the Roman heart than revenge. Tales of Roman revenge span the city’s history, from the great wars of the Republic to the debauched autocrats of the empire. They vary in terms of scale, sure, but never in their vindictiveness. In terms of paying their debts, the Lannister had nothing on the denizens of the Eternal City.
For the record, some elements of these stories may be apocryphal. I have done my best to exclude elements that historians are pretty sure are fabrications, but I’m not about to deprive y’all of a thrilling tale of Roman revenge because it can’t be verified by six different sources. Sorry not sorry.
Never Cross Caesar
Long before Julius Caesar was the man who made himself dictator of Rome, even before he conquered Gaul and invaded Britain, he was a spoiled patrician brat. He came from a very wealthy Roman family, and that made him a very good target for kidnappers. In 75 BCE, when Caesar was just 25 years old, he was captured by a band of pirates. They planned to ask twenty talents as ransom for his release, which Caesar thought laughably low; the young Roman suggested fifty.
As the pirates awaited their money, they came to like Caesar, a charismatic, charming young man whom they began to regard as a friend as well as a captive. Between rounds of drinks and games, Caesar would often say that when he got free, he would see each of his captors crucified. His captors, who had never harmed a hair on his head, laughed along with him.
When the ransom was paid, Caesar returned to the city of Miletus and immediately departed again at the head of a massive fleet. He found the pirates still at anchor, and captured them all. When the provincial governor proved slow to act, Caesar personally removed them from prison and crucified them himself. It’s not like he didn’t warn them.
Revenge By Any Other Name
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, better known as the emperor Elagabalus, is one of the most singular personalities in all of Roman history. Ruling from 318-322 CE, Elagabalus’ short reign was punctuated by his own murder at only 18. His own bodyguards killed him and threw his body in the sewer, weirded out by his aggressively unconventional sex life and truly extraordinary decadence.
One of the many ways Elagabalus rubbed traditional Romans the wrong way was his fervent worship of the Syrian sun god, Elagabal, for whom he was named. By imperial decree, this deity was named holier than Jupiter, the traditional patriarch of the Roman gods. Many were furious, but lots of others were into it, specifically because worship of Elgabal involved lavish feasts and orgies.
At one of these shindigs, a brown-nosing guest complimented the young emperor’s floral decor by declaring that he could think of nothing more pleasurable than to be utterly engulfed in their sweet petals. Moved to indignant rage by such a trite sentiment, the young emperor invited this same guy to his next do, and, midway through dinner, had him killed by dropping literal tons of rose petals on him.
The Fate of Carthage
The great Punic Wars paved the way for Rome’s uncontested hegemony in the Mediterranean, but the North African city of Carthage didn’t go down easily. Thanks to the military genius of Hannibal Barca, Carthaginian forces managed to invade Europe overland and terrorize Italy for years. They never managed to break through the walls of Rome, though, and they could never secure a decisive victory. The Romans eventually convinced Numidia, an ally of Carthage, to switch sides, and the newly-minted alliance toppled what had been a military superpower.
The Romans allowed Carthage to stand, but only under extremely restrictive terms. Carthage would be forever crippled militarily and dependent on Rome for defense. Carthage, under penalty of war, was never again to raise arms for any reason without Roman consent. Despite these measures, many in Rome still feared the specter of Hannibal, the peerless warlord who had nearly defeated them. So, 50 years later, when the Numidians once again attacked their old allies, the Carthaginians pleaded for aid from Rome. It never came.
The Carthaginians mounted a meager defense, and a Roman army did indeed arrive: to punish Carthage for breaking the terms of the treaty. The Romans laid siege to the ancient city for three years, finally breaching the walls in 146 BCE. After six days of fighting in the streets, the Romans had finally conquered their greatest enemy. The city was torn to the ground, and the remaining citizens sold into slavery. It isn’t true that the Romans salted the earth so that nothing could grow again; instead, they transformed the fallen metropolis into farmland to feed their citizens. Carthage, in death, became literal fodder for the ascendancy of Rome.
Death of a Wrestler
The emperor Commodus was wildly unpopular, a violent narcissist obsessed with the games of the arena. He also did shit like spend an entire afternoon firing arrows into a throng of lions from the safety of his box. When the dust settled, Commodus had killed 100 lions. By his logic, this made him 100 times greater than Hercules, since that wiener had only killed one lion. As the emperor, he was considered a living god, and therefore his habit of competing as a gladiator — a slave — was completely antithetical to the Roman social order.
Worse, Commodus’ exploits would also subvert the cultural purpose of the games. The violence of the arena was supposed to celebrate the valor and martial skill cherished by Rome, but Commodus was out there winning clearly rigged fights against professional killers. The entire thing felt off, and Commodus was eventually strangled in the bath by Narcissus, his wrestling coach and personal trainer.
All of Rome breathed a sigh of relief when Pertinax became emperor. A former teacher, soldier, and senator, the disciplined Pertinax was the total opposite of the hated Commodus. One of his first orders of business: the gruesome execution of the Narcissus, who had freed Rome from the berserk Commodus and secured Pertinax’ own path to power. The new emperor ordered Narcissus to be torn apart by lions, lest Rome forget that her emperor’s life, no matter how vile, is sacred. Two months later, he was murdered by his own bodyguards for being too strict. Irony, thy name is Pertinax.
What an Artist!
There’s little veracity to the idea that Nero gleefully played his fiddle (or lyre, the Romans didn’t have fiddles) as Rome burned around him, but dude was musically obsessed. He visited Greece in 67 CE, and the Olympic Games were revived just so he could compete in them. Among Nero’s “improvements” to the ancient tradition was a new event: singing! He won, which was impressive, given that by all accounts he was a fucking awful singer.
He was fond of conscripting citizens to see him in concert, and people were packed into cramped venues like sardines to listen to him caterwaul. Some people even pretended to die of asphyxiation or heat stroke so that their bodies would be dragged outside and thrown into ditches.
On one occasion, Nero is supposed to have performed alongside a group of professional singers, one of whom did not get the memo that the emperor was a diva. This guy didn’t bother phoning it in, and his performance upstaged the actually-unskilled Nero, who was so outraged that he had the man killed. When Nero’s antics finally led to him being declared a public enemy by the senate, he took his own life, but not before lamenting, “What an artist the world loses in me!”
