Attention getter: "I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends" (Walt Whitman 1). Thesis: If Emperor Nero had Walt Whitman as an advisor to teach him how to treat people better and run a successful empire, then he would not be hated or considered a bad leader.
Political Figure-Emperor Nero
Biography/Background
Nero was a pitiless emperor because he overused his power and his selfishness killed and damaged the people of Rome and his own family.
"His bloodlust turned Rome into a horror show for 14 awful years. In addition to murdering many members of his own family, including his mother and aunt, Nero continued the reign of terror of his predecessors in emphatic style" (Bonta 1).
"A nine-day fire in Rome in A.D. 64…Nero was not fiddling while Rome burned…he spent that time writing a stronger fire code and designing a new city. He started reconstruction one day after the fires were out"(Reid 2).
Power hungry Nero got his personality from his family and the troubles he experience as a child.
"Nero resented Octavia, and years later scandalized his mother by an affair with an ex-slave, Acte, whom he threatened to marry. In 54 A.D. Agrippina became alarmed that her plans for Nero might be frustrated, so she had Claudius poisoned, it is said" (Geoffrey Lehmann 1).
"Agrippina as she wanted to rule the empire herself but Nero would not allow anyone to take his place and had her killed" ("Nero" 1).
Drive to control all of Rome made him paranoid and wanting him to be the center of everything.
"Emperor Nero came into power at a young age thanks to his power hungry mother Agrippina…Nero probably realized that the women in his life were outdoing him and so he proceeded to murder his wife and mother" (Grant 32).
"One of his grandest plans was to tear down a third of Rome so that he could build an elaborate series of palaces that would be known as Neropolis… History has blamed Nero for the disaster, implying that he started the fire so that he could bypass the senate and rebuild Rome to his liking" ("The Great Fire of Rome" 1).
Major issue/problem
In order to build a palace in Rome, Nero destroyed the lives of most of the people.
"On the night of July 19, 64 A.D., a fire broke out among the shops lining the Circus Maximus, Rome's mammoth chariot stadium… Knowing this, Nero himself was miles away in the cooler coastal resort of Antium… Two thirds of Rome had been destroyed" ("The Great Fire of Rome" 1).
"Nero played the fiddle while Rome was burning" (Gytes 1).
Major Problem: Nero didn't listen to his people or family which made him a hated man, but his problem was that he feared losing his power and would kill anyone just to keep it.
"Nero had his power-hungry mother moved to a separate residence; shortly thereafter, he allegedly had her killed"("Nero" 1)
"Sulla and Plautus, great-nephews of Augustus, being in exile, were beheaded by Nero's command, and his marriage with Octavia being annulled, she was banished to Campania… Nero with his mates rioted by night through the city, attacking men, assaulting women, and filled the vacant positions at the imperial Court from the dregs of the city"("Nero" 2)
How can he fix this? Nero should have stick with how he started his reign when he was all about the people.
"The early part of Nero's reign did show some promise as his tutor, Seneca, and the praetorian prefect, Burrus, ruled for him. During this time he forbade capital punishment and gladiator fights in the arena. Also, he lowered the taxes" (Keen 2).
"He gave salaries to impoverished senators; He introduced fire-fighting regulations and the use of fire-preventing materials in buildings" ("Nero as The Antichrist" 1).
Author-Walt Whitman
Biography/Background
Whitman was very helpful and he cared about other people and their problems.
"Volunteer nurse in the course of the American Civil War (1861-65)" ( Szczesiul 1).
"Overcome by the suffering of the many wounded in Washington, Whitman decided to stay and work in the hospitals and stayed in the city for eleven years. He took a job as a clerk for the Department of the Interior, which ended when the Secretary of the Interior, James Harlan, discovered that Whitman was the author of Leaves of Grass, which Harlan found offensive".
Relationship with his family and his childhood had a great impact on his life. He saw his family troubles and wanted to do better.
"There was a special affectional bond between Whitman and his mother, and the long correspondence between them records a kind of partnership in attempting to deal with the family crises that mounted over the years".
"He loved ferries and the people who worked on them, and his 1856 poem eventually entitled "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" explored the full resonance of the experience" (Szczesiul 1).
Whitman views the war and slavery should not be in the world because it causes turmoil and violence.
"It appears that Whitman's increasing frustration with the Democratic party's compromising approaches to the slavery crisis led him to continue his political efforts through the more subtle and indirect means of experimental poetry, a poetry that he hoped would be read by masses of average Americans and would transform their way of thinking" (Lukas 1).
"Whatever the cause, in Whitman's future-oriented poetry blacks become central to his new literary project and central to his understanding of democracy. Notebook passages assert that the poet has the "divine grammar of all tongues, and says indifferently and alike How are you friend? to the President in the midst of his cabinet, and Good day my brother, to Sambo among the hoes of the sugar field" ("Poet at Work: Walt Whitman Notebooks 1850s -1860s" 1).
Beliefs/Philosophy
Whitman was a transcendentalist, he believe violence is never the way and that equality was needed to keep the world together.
"Walt Whitman began his transcendental writing in 1855, but continued his writings after serving in the Civil War as a field-surgeon, with Leaves of Grass. In his first writings, he made it clear that the works of Emerson, too, influenced him" (Lukas 1).
"Pondering how to fix it, Whitman asked himself where the Union of States located was? He decided it was to be found in the hearts and minds of the country's citizens, in their participation in the flow of natural evolution, not in a charter on paper" (O'Brien 1).
Whitman believes race should not be an issue, that everyone should be treated with respect.
"For Whitman and other like-minded thinkers, the free soil position had the potential to keep the Union together" (O'Brien 1).
"Whitman thought slavery abhorrent. His sympathy for laborers naturally extended to those in servitude, and he often wrote in the voice of the oppressed" (Lukas 1).
How would things have been different?
Walt Whitman had trouble with his family issues and problems,but he look at the good not the bad.
"There was a special affectional bond between Whitman and his mother, and the long correspondence between them records a kind of partnership in attempting to deal with the family crises that mounted over the years, as Jesse became mentally unstable and violent and eventually had to be institutionalized, as Hannah entered a disastrous marriage with an abusive husband, as Andrew became an alcoholic and married a prostitute before dying of ill health in his 30s, and as Edward required increasingly dedicated care" (Lukas 1).
"Walt Whitman's childhood was usually described by himself as unhappy, mainly due to the economic struggles of his family. After concluding his formal schooling at the age of 11, Walt Whitman searched for jobs, first as an office boy and later as an apprentice for a newspaper, so as to help with the family income" (McCarter 1).
Nero should have keep building from his first couple of months when he was liked by the people.
"The early part of Nero's reign did show some promise as his tutor, Seneca, and the praetorian prefect, Burrus, ruled for him. During this time he forbade capital punishment and gladiator fights in the arena. Also, he lowered the taxes" (("Nero as The Antichrist" 1).
"He gave salaries to impoverished senators; He introduced fire-fighting regulations and the use of fire-preventing materials in buildings" (Grant 40).
Nero, consequently, would have remembered as one of the greats not a monster to some the "Antichrist".
"Nero ended up making the people hate him even more. Up until Nero Christianity had been tolerated by the Romans and the only problem the pagans had with the Christians is that they would not worship the emperor as a divine god which was considered treason to the state" ("Nero as The Antichrist" 1).
"Upon hearing that he had been declared a public enemy by the senate, Nero hid at the house of one of his freedmen and committed suicide there. he is believed to have said the famous lines "What an artist dies in me" as his last words" ("Nero as The Antichrist" 1).
Conclusion
Restated Thesis: Walt Whitman would have drastically change how Nero ruled Rome during his reign, Which would have lasted longer.
Restated Points: Nero, Whitman, differences
Clincher: Nero and Whitman in perspective. What can happen when we listen to one another.
