Home -> Articoli -> Roma - Magia

Nero and the magic.

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Magic and Nero
Speaking of prophecy, astrology, magic and so on, and remembering which were the Romans laws condemning these arts, one can be astonished by the fact that even an emperor was one of their follower. This emperor was Nero who so firmly believed in all this sort of things that he filled his palace with magicians and soothsayers. One of them - as Pliny the Older tells us - was Ostanes, a wizard who assured that he was able to read the future in water, spheres, air, stars, lamps, basins and also that he could look into it with axes and with many other methods. Moreover he boasted to be able to talk with ghosts. According to Pliny, Nero discovered that all this bragging was a bunch of lies and chased him.
But Ostanes’s failure didn’t dissuade the emperor to go on with his research: In his thought and in his wishes magic came always first. No art had a more ardent patron than him, and as he had riches, power and capacity of learning – to sum it up all the possible and conceivable means for satisfying all his whims - he went on employing magicians, and always hoped that they could enable him to practice their art. He even did persuade the famed Tyridate to come from Armenia, and Tyridate came bringing with him a real Armenian triumph (lots and lots of people) and thus charging of high expenses all the provinces he had to cross. In fact, asserting that for the magicians spitting or otherwise contaminating the sea was considered a serious sin, he refused to come by boat, and to reach Rome he crossed half Europe. As he had been called by the emperor, all the provinces had to entertain both him and his large suite: For the unhappy countries that were on his way they were just as damaging as a horde of locusts. Once arrived at Rome Tyridate and the other magicians who accompanied him initiated Nero to their banquets, but although tenaciously the emperor tried to do some spell he never succeeded, and the only result that came out of it was that he spent in vain an enormous quantity of money. And yet Nero had all the numbers to obtain what he wanted, apart from the fact that to reach this supernatural power, he would never balk at anything, and even if to get it he had to take part to some horrible and barbarians rites, he wouldn’t draw back.
At the end Nero was forced to give up and he lost faith in the magicians who came from far away places. According to Pliny the fact that he, their ardent admirer, deserted their magic was the best proof of how false they were. If only the young emperor, had consulted the “Inferi” or the gods as every good Roman did, that would really have helped him more. Obviously the magicians defended themselves from the fact that they had not been able to do any prodigy. They affirmed that the gods did not obey to people who had freckles and overall that they did not allow this kind of persons to see them. At this Pliny asked. “Could this blemish be applied to Nero? No – replied he - his body didn’t have any flaw”. Then if it had been possible to become a magician, he would have done so. Why! He could chose black sheeps as perfect victims, and if by chance human sacrifices had been required he would have been quite happy to comply as killing people was one of his favored sport. No! There were no obstacles that prevented Nero to become a magician. It was only that what these wizards promised him were only forgery and lies.