Tigellinus

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Gaius Ophonius Tigellinus, also known as Sophonius Tigellinus, was a minister and favourite of the emperor Nero. He was a native of Agrigentum, of humble origin and possibly of Greek descent.

During the reign of Caligula he was banished (39). He had been accused for adultery with Agrippina the Younger and Julia Livilla, the two surviving sisters of the Roman Emperor. He was recalled by Claudius in 41.

Having inherited a fortune, he bought land in Apulia and Calabria and devoted himself to breeding race-horses. In this manner he gained the favour of Nero, whom he aided and abetted in his vices and cruelties. In 62 he was promoted to the prefecture of the praetorian guards. In 64 he made himself notorious for the orgies arranged by him in the Basin of Agrippa, and was suspected of incendiarism in connection with the Great Fire of Rome, which, after having subsided, broke out afresh in his Aemilian gardens.

In 65, during the investigation into the abortive conspiracy of Gaius Calpurnius Piso, he and Poppaea Sabina formed a kind of imperial privy council. In 67 he accompanied Nero on his tour in Greece. When the emperor's downfall appeared imminent, Tigellinus deserted him, and with Nymphidius Sabinus brought about the defection of the Praetorian Guard.

Under Galba he was obliged to give up his command, but managed to save his life by lavishing presents upon Titus Vinius, the favourite of Galba, and his daughter. Otho on his accession (69) determined to remove one so universally detested by the people. While in the baths at Sinuessa, Tigellinus received the news that he must die, and, having vainly endeavoured to gain a respite, cut his own throat.

[edit] Film and Literature

Tigellinus appears in both the play and film The Sign of the Cross. He is also a character in Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis (novel).

In the 1951 film Quo Vadis (1951 movie), based on the novel, Tigellinus is (unhistorically) stabbed to death by a spectator in the Colosseum when the Roman people revolt against Nero at the end of the film.