Class and Gender in the Opposition to Nero

This article investigates how class and gender figure in Nero's use of violence to obtain or manipulate information through analyzing two episodes in Tacitus's An. 14.59–64 and 15.51–57. In each case, women of varying social statuses become models of constantia under extreme physical duress. In the first instance, Octavia's servant women refuse to lie about their mistress's chastity and thus provide Nero with a legitimate rationale for his divorce. In the second, the freedwoman Epicharis staunchly refuses to inform against her co-conspirators involved in the Pisonian conspiracy. Tacitus uses these episodes to reflect upon the few, ennobling forms of resistance to Nero, and to provide female parallels to the Stoic opposition of Thrasea Paetus. Furthermore, both episodes illustrate Tacitus's concern with the freedom of speech (libertas) during the reign of a tyrant. Tacitus, at a loss for many models among elite men, finds incorruptible exempla in lower-class women.