The financial confusion became worse and prices rose day by day before Nero released his forged coins into circulation and announced that the old coins must be exchanged for new ones within a certain time, after which anyone found with the old coins would be regarded as an enemy of the State. Only taxes and duty could be paid with old coins.
To the shame of Rome, I must admit that the Senate confirmed this order by a considerable majority. So one cannot blame Nero alone for this crime against all decency and business customs.
The senators who voted for Nero justified their action by asserting that the rebuilding of Rome demantled a fundamental operation. They maintained that the rich would suffer more from this exchange of coins, because the rich owned more coinage than the poor and Nero did not consider it worth forging copper coins. This was nonsense. The senators’ property mostly consists of land, if they do not do business through their freedmen, and every one of the voting senators had had time to place such good gold and silver coins as they owned in safety.
Even the simplest country people were clever enough to hide their savings in clay pots and bury them in the earth. Altogether about a quarter of the coins that were in circulation were exchanged for the new ones. Of course, it should be noted that a great deal of Roman coinage had spread to the barbarian countries and all the way to India and China.
This unimaginable crime of Nero’s made many people think again, people who had understood and for political reasons forgiven him even the murder of his mother. The members of the Order of Knights who were in business, and the wealthy freedmen who controlled all business life, found cause to reconsider their political views because the new coinage reduced the whole of the public economy to confusion. Even experienced businessmen suffered stinging losses because of the change.
Only those who led a frivolous life, the idlers who were always in debt, were delighted with this move and admired Nero more than ever, for now they could pay their debts with money which was worth a fifth less than before. The clinking of citterns by long-haired singers of lampooning songs about rich men’s houses and in front of the exchanges, irritated me too. After this, all the aesthetes were more convinced than ever that nothing was impossible to Nero. They thought he was favoring the poor at the expense of the rich and had the courage to treat the Senate as he wished to. There were many senators’ sons among these flabby youths.
Hoarding of the old coinage was so general that no right-thinking person could regard it as a crime. It did not help that poor market traders and country people were imprisoned or sent to forced labor. Nero was forced to make temporary departures from his usual mild methods and threaten the coin hoarders with the death sentence. Nevertheless, no one was executed, for in the depths of his soul Nero realized that he himself was the criminal and not the poor who were attempting to hide the few genuine silver pieces which were their life’s savings.
I myself came to my senses and had one of my freedmen hurriedly form a bank and rent an exchange stand in the forum, since it was now a matter of such widespread exchange of money that the State was forced to turn to private bankers to achieve its purpose. They even received compensation for their trouble when the old coinage was delivered to the State treasury.
So no one was surprised when my freedman, in order to compete with the old established bankers who in the first confusion were not entirely clear as to what was going on, promised up to five percent in additional payments at the exchange of old coins for the new. He explained to his customers that he was doing this to acquire a reputation for his business and to help those without private means.
Shoemakers, coppersmiths and stonecutters queued up in front of his table while the old bankers watched gloomily from their own empty ones. Thanks to my freedman, within a few weeks I had received full recompense for my own exchange losses, despite the fact that he himself had privately been forced to give certain sums to the Juno Moneta college of priests, owing to the suspicion that he had not accounted for all the good coinage he had received.
At this time I secretly went into my room many times, locked the door and drank from my goblet of Fortuna, for I thought I needed some good luck. I forgave my mother in my heart for her low origins, for I too was half Greek through her and this brought me luck in business. It is said that a Greek can even cheat a Jew in business, but I do not believe this myself.
But on my father’s side I am a genuine Roman, descended from the Etruscan kings, and this can be proved in Caere. So I hold honesty in business very highly. My freedman’s exchange affairs and my earlier double accounting for the menagerie concerned only the State treasury, and were acts of self-defense on the part of an honest man, struggling against tyrannical taxation. Otherwise no sound business life would be possible.
For instance, I have never allowed my freedmen to mix chalk into the flour or mountain oils into the cooking oil, as certain insolent upstarts have succeeded in doing. Besides, one can easily be crucified for doing that. I once mentioned the matter to Fenius Rufus when he was the senior supervisor for the grain stores and mills, naturally without mentioning any names. He warned me then and said that no one in his position could afford to ignore the doctoring of grain, whoever the person was. Some sea-damaged cargoes might possibly be approved by the State, if this were of help to a friend in need. But he could go no further. Sighing, he admitted that despite his high office, he had to remain rather poor.
From Fenius Rufus my thoughts go to Tigellinus. He was now being discussed unfavorably before Nero. Whispered warnings were made that Nero was risking his reputation by favoring him and associating with him, and it was pointed out that Tigellinus had grown rich much too quickly after his appointment as City Prefect. Nero’s many gifts could not explain this away, even if Nero did make a habit of making his friends so rich that they were not tempted by bribes in the offices he appointed them to. What the friendship was like, no one really knows, but I must say I do not think an Emperor ever has any real friends.
The worst accusation leveled against Tigellinus in Nero’s view was that he had once secretly been Agrippina’s lover and thus had been banished from Rome in his youth. When Agrippina became consort to Claudius, she had arranged for Tigellinus to return, as she did for Seneca, who had had an equally doubtful relationship with Agrippina’s sister. I do not really believe the relationship between Tigellinus and Agrippina continued afterwards, at least not as long as Claudius was alive, but he had always had a weakness for her, although for political reasons he had not been able to prevent murder.
For many reasons Nero decided it would be wise to reinstate Fenius Rufus as deputy Prefect of the Praetorians alongside Tigellinus. He was given the overseas cases to deal with, while Tigellinus looked after the military side. Tigellinus was understandably embittered by this, for his best source of income now ran dry. I know from my own experience that no one is ever so rich that he does not wish to see his wealth further increased. This is not nonsense, but one of the things a fortune inevitably brings with it, and something against which one is powerless.
Because of the uneasy state of financial affairs, prices continued to rise and by considerably more than the fifth by which Nero had lowered the value of money. Nero issued many edicts to try to keep prices under control and punish usurers, but the result was that the goods simply vanished from the shops. In the halls and marketplaces the people were soon unable to buy their green vegetables, meat, lentils and root vegetables, but had to go out into the country or turn to tradesmen who crept around at dusk from house to house with their baskets, defying the magistrates by selling at high prices.