The Return of the King

August 16, 2016 was the 39th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. He was 42 when he died. The week leading up to August 16 every year is known as Tribute Week to Elvis fans, thousands of whom make the pilgrimage to Graceland to celebrate, commemorate, and mourn the passing of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll. There is a candlelight vigil; there are concerts of Elvis’ music and appearances by people who knew and worked with Elvis; and there is a contest for Elvis impersonators (officially known as Elvis Tribute Artists). All of these events, especially the performances of the impersonators, work to simultaneously mourn Elvis’ death and keep him alive.

When the Emperor Nero died at the age of 32 on June 9, 68 CE, most Romans greeted the news with rejoicing. But for years some people laid flowers on Nero’s tomb, put statues of Nero wearing the toga praetexta on the Rostra, and circulated his edicts, “as if he were still alive and would return in a short time with great harm to his enemies” (Suetonius, Nero 57). Like Elvis, Nero had some devoted fans.

Over the next twenty or so years after Nero’s death, several men appeared across the Roman world who claimed to be Nero and tried to inspire large followings and even armed uprisings. Scholars have tended to call these men “false Neros” or “Nero impostors,” viewing them as part of a larger phenomenon of political impersonation in the ancient world, such as the false Agrippa Postumus (Tacitus, Annals II.38) and the false Drusus Caesar (Tacitus, Annals V.8), both of whom appeared during the reign of Tiberius (14–37 CE).

But it might be helpful to take a page from Elvis fandom and think of these men as “Nero impersonators,” because, in addition to their political and military ambitions, there seems to have been another motive driving them to undertake this risky behavior: desire.

The first Nero impersonator appeared within a few months of the emperor’s death,. He looked like Nero and he could sing and play the cithara like Nero. He began to amass followers (whom Tacitus describes as adiunctis desertoribus, “poor tramps”; Histories 2.8–9) on the Greek island of Cythnus. A Roman provincial governor got wind of the situation and had him killed.

After this Nero impersonator, there were two others that we hear about. One, described by Cassius Dio as “an Asiatic called Terentius Maximus” (66.19.3b-c), was supported by the Parthian king Artabanus during the reign of the emperor Titus (79–81 CE). Like the first Nero impersonator, this one resembled Nero physically and also sang and played the cithara. Dio says that he gained a number of followers as he traveled from Asia to the Euphrates. The other is described by Suetonius as a “man of mysterious origin” (Nero 57) who appeared when Suetonius was a young man (ca. 88–89 CE) and claimed to be Nero. This man was supported by the Parthians who defied Roman demands to hand the impersonator over.

Local politics probably played a large part in the rise of the Nero impersonators. As Miriam Griffin observes, the Nero impersonators we know of found political support in Greece, which had sided with Mark Antony during the civil war and subsequently had been neglected by Augustus and his successors. The Parthians, while technically not part of the Roman Empire, seem to have supported one or possibly two Nero impersonators because they desired a return to the political rapprochement they had achieved with Nero before his death.

But the phenomenon of Nero impersonators in the decades after Nero’s death is complicated, or enhanced, perhaps, by the evidence we have of longing for Nero’s return: the honors paid to Nero’s tomb, the placement of Nero’s statues on the Rostra, and the circulation of Nero’s edicts for years after his death. Tending a tomb is arguably standard religious obligation, but in the case of a disgraced and overthrown emperor, perhaps less standard; taken together with placing statues on the Rostra and circulating edicts however, this begins to look like hero cult, or like mimetic reenactment — like a ritual designed to bring the dead back to life. These actions speak of a desire, on the part of some Romans, for Nero to return. Dio Chrysostom says of Nero: “Even now everybody wishes he were still alive, and the great majority do believe that he is” (21.10).

This is where Elvis fandom comes in. These men who pretended to be Nero, and more particularly, the men who decided to follow them, may have been motivated by a similar kind of fan desire that we see with Elvis impersonators. It is, at its root, the desire for a celebrity not to have died. Impersonation is one of the channels into which that desire pours itself when it confronts the impossibility of its own fulfillment.

The first Nero impersonator seems to have attracted a following in part because he resembled Nero: Tacitus describes him as “a slave from Pontus or, as others have reported, a freedman from Italy, who was skilled at playing the cithara and singing” and who had a facial resemblance to Nero (Histories 2.8). Cassius Dio says that the second Nero impersonator “resembled Nero both in appearance and in voice (for he, too, sang and played the cithara)” (66.19.3b-c).

Physically resembling Nero would seem to be a necessity for a Nero impersonator, at least shortly after Nero’s death, when people still remembered what Nero looked like. The ability to play the cithara and sing, though, does not seem politically necessary. Rather, it would have have been necessary for the fans — necessary to create and maintain the illusion that Nero was still alive, still vital, still a star.

It is unclear whether these Nero impersonators gave rise to the legends that Nero was still alive and would return, or whether the impersonators were opportunistically cashing in on legends that were already circulating, but what is clear is that there was a longing for Nero to return in some parts of the Empire and among some subjects. Nero impersonators attempted to fulfill that longing, just as Elvis impersonators do for Elvis fans today.

Elvis impersonators should look the part, though strict resemblence is not necessary. More importantly, they must sing, and they must move; Bill Haney, the first professional Elvis impersonator (who looked nothing like Elvis) only saw his career take off when he stopped sitting at the piano and began to gyrate his hips onstage. It is no accident that the first Nero impersonator we hear of was able to pass himself off as Nero in part by musical impersonation. It was Nero the Artist, as well as Nero the Ruler, who was missed by his loyal subjects.

And the longing was intense. There were rumors that Nero had faked his own death (like Elvis): “the rumors about [Nero’s] death had been varied, and therefore many people imagined and believed that he was alive” (Tacitus, Histories 2.8). Prophecies like the Sibylline Oracles began to appear, predicting that Nero would rise again in the East and return to rule — the Nero Redivivus legend. It persisted for centuries; Augustine refers to people in his own day (ca. 420 CE) who believe that Nero is alive and in hiding, still 32 years old (the age he was when he “died”), waiting for the right moment to reveal himself and reclaim his kingdom (City of God 20.19.3). The Nero Redivivus legend gave rise to the Christian view of Nero as the Antichrist, which persisted many centuries longer.

This legend sounds like modern conspiracy theories: news accounts that don’t quite match up generate alternative versions of accounts by people who want to believe them. Similar are Elvis “sightings” or conspiracy theories about Elvis faking his own death. One humorous take on this phenomenon is the 2002 Bruce Campbell film “Bubba Ho Tep,” in which Elvis is secretly living out his life in an East Texas nursing home, disguised as an Elvis impersonator.

But the similarities between Elvis impersonation and Nero impersonation go even deeper than their bizarre stories of faked death, their legendary musical careers, and the romance of a star who dies too young.

The return of the King is desired most intensely by those feeling disenfranchised under the current regime: the urban poor of Rome and the Greek East, in the case of Nero; the white male working class, in the case of Elvis.

The Greeks were grateful to Nero for “liberating” them from Roman rule and Roman taxation; they also seem to have been grateful for his focused attention on Greek poetry and music. Our Roman sources for Nero’s artistic performances sneer at his lack of talent and willingness to degrade himself, in keeping with Roman social taboos against members of the elite performing onstage. However, they also suggest that the urban poor of Rome enjoyed Nero’s games, his munificence, and even his “slumming” as a performer. It seems significant that Tacitus describes the first Nero impersonator as either a slave or a freedman (and his followers as “poor tramps,” deserters, and slaves), and that Dio describes the second Nero impersonator as “an Asiatic”: the class and ethnic snobbery is plain to see.

Likewise, scholars speak of the “‘embattled’ masculinity” of working-class white men in contemporary America, for whom Elvis impersonators provide “‘magical’ [rather than real] resolutions.” The impersonator appeals to the disenfranchised by elevating their marginal identities and reflecting them back into the cultural spotlight.

Both Nero and Elvis owed their success as icons to their appropriation of stigmatized-yet-desirable subcultures in their transgressive performances: Nero’s musical and artistic performances were read as “Greek” and “effeminate,” while Elvis co-opted African-American musical culture and feminine modes of display to make himself a star.

Nero toured Greece and put on displays of his singing and cithara playing; he also entered into competition in athletic and musical festivals, which he forced to be held during his visit. His return to Rome from Greece in 67 CE (perhaps we could call it his “Comeback Special”) was staged as a literal musical triumph: he rode in Augustus’ triumphal chariot, but reworked all the standard triumphal imagery in honor of Jupiter to honor Apollo, god of music, instead. Many were scandalized by Nero’s equation of musical and martial accomplishments, and considered Nero’s musical aspirations to be just as disgraceful as his taboo-breaking sex life. Yet Rome had a long history of mingled envy and contempt for Greek artistic culture, which Nero was only tapping into, not inventing.

Elvis, famously, performed African-American rock and roll in a way that was just “white enough” for white audiences who would not listen to African-American artists, but just “black enough” to thrill them with the sense of racial transgression — and all in an exuberantly sexualized manner. As the legend goes, Elvis’ first performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on September 9, 1956 was simultaneously a hit and a scandal; he was invited back twice, but cameramen were instructed to film “Elvis the Pelvis” only from the waist up.

Before that performance, at the very beginning of his career, on October 2, 1954, Elvis appeared on “The Grand Ole Opry.” This performance was too much for the Opry crowd; Elvis’ music and hair seemed “too black,” his dance moves were too suggestive, and some people thought he wore eyeshadow for the performance. Supposedly, the Opry manager told him not to quit his day job driving a truck; he was not asked back. As with Nero, part of Elvis’ allure was that he made traditionalists and people at the top of the social hierarchy uncomfortable.

Nero and Elvis skillfully played on their own cultures’ ambivalence about subcultures that were seen as inferior but desirable or “authentic” in some way — Greeks, low-status performers, African-Americans, women. They also skillfully played themselves, in a sense; Elvis starred in a number of musical “Elvis films.” Elvis’ vocal stylizations and gestures became so recognizable, so imitable, that he himself could be seen as “doing” Elvis. Nero supposedly enjoyed performing tragic roles of characters whose crimes resembled his own, such as Orestes the matricide and Oedipus, while wearing a mask of his own face (Suetonius, Nero 20–21).

The performativity of Elvis and Nero themselves encouraged their impersonators, who arose from the ranks of the disenfranchised and sought to bring back the reign of the King by mimetic re-enactment. These impersonators tap into the desires of the disenfranchised: the desire for the return of the King; the desire for the return of their rightful, higher status; the desire to experience the forbidden Other without surrendering their place in the world. These desires are all ultimately connected. They are, at root, about the wish to remain eternally youthful, to overcome death, to become a god oneself. As Frow has argued, the desire aroused by the Elvis impersonator is ultimately a desire for apotheosis: “The star belongs to a domain constructed by recording and the modes of repetition specific to it which exists outside or beyond ordinary life, profane time; this is the basis for the promise that, in identifying with the star, we too will overcome death.”

Elvis, of course, is a god. There have been many scholarly books and articles written about the hero cult focused on his tomb at Graceland, about the offerings left there by devoted fans, about the rituals centered on the tomb and on Graceland during Tribute Week. There are also many articles about Elvis impersonators as engaging in a sort of religious reenactment of the sacred presence of the King, behaving as priests and intermediaries for Elvis fans who want to feel they are in the physical presence of their idol.

Nero experimented with portraying himself as a god during his lifetime. After his death, his fans attempted to make this into reality, both by giving his tomb hero cult and by following men who sang and played and looked like Nero, men who promised to bring back the golden age and give voice to fans’ desires.

The Christians turned Nero into the Antichrist, while we have turned Elvis into a punchline. But the traces of desire that their celebrity aroused remain visible in their impersonators.

Anne Duncan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is the author of Performance and Identity in the Classical World (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and is currently at work on two projects: a monograph called Command Performance: Tyranny and Theater in the Ancient World, and a textbook on Roman spectacle, under contract to Cambridge University Press.