18
18
0
On February 11, 55, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman Emperorship, died under mysterious circumstances in Rome. This cleared the way for Nero to become Emperor. From the article:
"Nero
Nero was Roman emperor from 54 to 68 CE. The last of the Julio-Claudians to rule the Roman Empire, his 14-year reign represents everything decadent about that period in Roman history. He was self-indulgent, cruel, and violent as well as a cross-dressing exhibitionist. His lavish parties combined with the burning of Rome continued the economic chaos that had plagued the Roman citizenry since the days of Tiberius (r. 14-37 CE). According to the historian Suetonius in his The Twelve Caesars, upon hearing of the emperor's death by suicide, "…citizens ran through the streets wearing caps of liberty as though they were freed slaves."
Early Life
Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in 37 CE, but he was renamed Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus when his mother, Agrippina, married Emperor Claudius in 49 CE. Some believe Nero’s fate was inevitable. His father, Gnaeus Domitius, who died when Nero was three, was extremely violent in his own right and was described by his contemporaries as "a despicable character". He once deliberately ran over a young boy with his chariot as he drove through a local village. When his friends congratulated him upon hearing of the birth of his son, Nero’s father said that anything born to Agrippina and him would be unlikeable and a disaster.
Nero’s mother was the daughter of Agrippina the Elder and the great-granddaughter of Emperor Augustus (her grandmother was his daughter Julia) – both women, as well as Agrippina’s older brothers, were starved to death (the brothers by the order of Tiberius). Her youngest brother was Emperor Caligula (r. 37-41 CE) whose short reign came to a violent end when he was murdered by his own Praetorian Guard thereby bringing her uncle Claudius (r. 41-54 CE) to the throne. After the death of her husband, Agrippina set her sights on the recently widowed Claudius, whose third wife Messalina had been murdered on his orders for, among other reasons, adultery and attempted treason. After a short courtship, they married, and Nero (at his mother’s insistence) was soon adopted in 50 CE.
Succession
To the general public, Nero was a welcomed change & the early part of Nero’s reign was considered by many to be a mini-golden age.
However, by this time, Agrippina had already taken the next step - the death of Claudius, placing Nero upon the emperor’s throne. In 54 CE Claudius mysteriously died after eating a bowl of mushrooms, probably poisoned ones. Some evidence exists suggesting that Nero knew of the poisoning when he later called mushrooms the “food of the gods.” There was also fear that Britannicus (Claudius’s legitimate son) might be chosen as emperor ahead of Nero. Suetonius wrote: "He [Nero] tried to poison Britannicus being not merely jealous of his voice … but afraid that the common people might be less attached to Claudius’s adopted son than to his real one." Nero’s fears soon abated (temporarily) when he was chosen as the new emperor in 54 CE. With his ascent to the imperial throne, Agrippina became the woman behind the man; but not for long.
Among Nero’s first acts as emperor was to cancel many of Claudius’ edicts and decrees, referring to his predecessor as a "doddering old fool." To the general public Nero was a welcomed change. Like those before him, the early part of Nero’s reign was considered by many to be a mini-golden age; the populace believed him to be generous, kind, and accessible. There were lavish games, plays, concerts, chariot races and gladiatorial tournaments, and taxes were even reduced. He restored much of the Roman Senate’s power that had been lost over the years, but this restoration had a hidden agenda; it was only done to enable the young emperor to pursue his worldly pleasures, to sing (he did not possess a great voice) and play his lyre. While he sang, no one in the audience was permitted to leave the performance. Suetonius wrote: "We read of women in the audience giving birth, and of men being so bored with the music and the applause that they furtively dropped down from the wall at the rear… and were carried away for burial."
Nero & Agrippina
Although Nero found time for his concerts and games, he had bigger problems at home; his overly protective mother still believed herself to be the true force behind the throne. Agrippina even was bold enough to boast of her influence to others. Nero, of course, found this interference intolerable and made plans to end it. First, he moved her out of the palace. Next, he denied her the protection of her Praetorian Guard and banned her from all gladiatorial contests. Realizing that she was losing her grip on Nero, she fought back by throwing her support behind Britannicus, Nero’s stepbrother and Claudius’ son, but he mysteriously died at a family banquet - another poisoning victim. It did not take long for Agrippina to realize she was next.
Nero planned his mother’s death with great care, even bringing specialists to Rome from Alexandria to assist in the planning. He had an elaborate device created for her bedchamber ceiling which would collapse and crush her in her sleep; however, it proved to be too complicated to build and install. Next, he tried a specially designed boat that would collapse and sink, but she proved too smart and swam to the shore. Finally, his last attempt was the simplest and easiest: he had her stabbed to death, but her death would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Personal Life
Nero’s marriages and affairs also proved to be troublesome. He was married to the very popular Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messalina (a marriage made at his mother’s urging) but also having an affair with the very pregnant Poppaea Sabina (his mother detested her). In order to marry her, he accused Octavia of adultery and exiled her, later to be murdered (but made to look like a suicide). Poppaea, whose first husband was Rufius Crispinus (a Roman soldier), was married to the future Emperor Otho at the time of her affair with Nero. On the emperor’s orders, Otho was dispatched to the far reaches of the empire.
His exodus and Octavia’s death opened the door for Nero’s second marriage. It was even suspected that Poppaea was behind Octavia’s and possibly Agrippina’s death. The historian Tacitus in his Annals wrote:
Length of power had matured his daring, and his passion for Poppaea daily grew more ardent. As the woman had no hope of marriage for herself or of Octavia’s divorce while Agrippina lived, she would reproach the emperor with incessant vituperation … ‘Why,’ she asked, ‘was her marriage put off?’
Nero’s second marriage was not a happy one. Poppaea and Nero’s child died shortly after her birth. Poppaea’s next pregnancy ended in tragedy for both. After Nero and she argued late one night (Nero liked to stay out late), he supposedly kicked her in the stomach, killing both her and the unborn child.
Troubles & Disasters: The Great Fire
Although he had good advisors in Burrus and Seneca, the emperor’s reign would continue to see one catastrophe after another. First, there was the Piso Conspiracy, an unsuccessful plot to kill Nero, involving at least 19 senators as well as other leading citizens. Its failure brought about the execution of 41 individuals. Although it failed, it led to Nero being forever paranoid and untrusting. Next, there was the failed Boudicca rebellion in Britain as well as numerous insurrections in many outlying provinces including both Judea and Gaul; the latter two were a reaction to increased taxes.
The greatest threat to Nero’s reign, however, was the Great Fire, which began on 19 July 64 CE and lasted for six days. Ten of the 14 districts of the city were destroyed, hundreds died, thousands were left homeless, and looters ravaged the city. Since the fire, many questions have been raised. Did Nero play his lyre (not a fiddle which had not been invented) while the city burned? Did he start it? Historians differ in their response to these questions. Was he even in the city or did he watch it burn? Suetonius wrote: "Nero watched the conflagration from the Tower of Maecenas enrapt by what he called ‘the beauty of the flames’; then put on his tragedian’s costume and sang …" Tacitus seemed to remain neutral when he wrote: "A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts, worse, however, and more dreadful than any which have ever happened to this city by the violence of fire." The blame fell, of course, upon the heads of the persecuted Christians who had always viewed Nero as the anti-Christ.
Although he had to raise taxes to finance the rebuilding of Rome, the city was better in some ways than before: rebuilt residential districts, wider streets, brick buildings, and colonnades at street level to shelter to residents from the sun. Of course, the new Rome also included Nero’s Golden Palace (later to be buried by Emperor Trajan), containing gold plated ceilings, a lake, and exotic animals. Those who believe Nero started the fire point to his palace as the underlying reason.
Suicide
The fire, the conspiracy, the numerous insurrections, and the empty treasury led to Nero’s demise. The Senate declared him an enemy of the public and named Galba as the new emperor. Realizing his days as emperor were over, Nero attempted suicide while in the villa of his freedman Phaon but he failed and needed help to take his own life. His last words were: 'What an artist dies in me.'"
"Nero
Nero was Roman emperor from 54 to 68 CE. The last of the Julio-Claudians to rule the Roman Empire, his 14-year reign represents everything decadent about that period in Roman history. He was self-indulgent, cruel, and violent as well as a cross-dressing exhibitionist. His lavish parties combined with the burning of Rome continued the economic chaos that had plagued the Roman citizenry since the days of Tiberius (r. 14-37 CE). According to the historian Suetonius in his The Twelve Caesars, upon hearing of the emperor's death by suicide, "…citizens ran through the streets wearing caps of liberty as though they were freed slaves."
Early Life
Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in 37 CE, but he was renamed Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus when his mother, Agrippina, married Emperor Claudius in 49 CE. Some believe Nero’s fate was inevitable. His father, Gnaeus Domitius, who died when Nero was three, was extremely violent in his own right and was described by his contemporaries as "a despicable character". He once deliberately ran over a young boy with his chariot as he drove through a local village. When his friends congratulated him upon hearing of the birth of his son, Nero’s father said that anything born to Agrippina and him would be unlikeable and a disaster.
Nero’s mother was the daughter of Agrippina the Elder and the great-granddaughter of Emperor Augustus (her grandmother was his daughter Julia) – both women, as well as Agrippina’s older brothers, were starved to death (the brothers by the order of Tiberius). Her youngest brother was Emperor Caligula (r. 37-41 CE) whose short reign came to a violent end when he was murdered by his own Praetorian Guard thereby bringing her uncle Claudius (r. 41-54 CE) to the throne. After the death of her husband, Agrippina set her sights on the recently widowed Claudius, whose third wife Messalina had been murdered on his orders for, among other reasons, adultery and attempted treason. After a short courtship, they married, and Nero (at his mother’s insistence) was soon adopted in 50 CE.
Succession
To the general public, Nero was a welcomed change & the early part of Nero’s reign was considered by many to be a mini-golden age.
However, by this time, Agrippina had already taken the next step - the death of Claudius, placing Nero upon the emperor’s throne. In 54 CE Claudius mysteriously died after eating a bowl of mushrooms, probably poisoned ones. Some evidence exists suggesting that Nero knew of the poisoning when he later called mushrooms the “food of the gods.” There was also fear that Britannicus (Claudius’s legitimate son) might be chosen as emperor ahead of Nero. Suetonius wrote: "He [Nero] tried to poison Britannicus being not merely jealous of his voice … but afraid that the common people might be less attached to Claudius’s adopted son than to his real one." Nero’s fears soon abated (temporarily) when he was chosen as the new emperor in 54 CE. With his ascent to the imperial throne, Agrippina became the woman behind the man; but not for long.
Among Nero’s first acts as emperor was to cancel many of Claudius’ edicts and decrees, referring to his predecessor as a "doddering old fool." To the general public Nero was a welcomed change. Like those before him, the early part of Nero’s reign was considered by many to be a mini-golden age; the populace believed him to be generous, kind, and accessible. There were lavish games, plays, concerts, chariot races and gladiatorial tournaments, and taxes were even reduced. He restored much of the Roman Senate’s power that had been lost over the years, but this restoration had a hidden agenda; it was only done to enable the young emperor to pursue his worldly pleasures, to sing (he did not possess a great voice) and play his lyre. While he sang, no one in the audience was permitted to leave the performance. Suetonius wrote: "We read of women in the audience giving birth, and of men being so bored with the music and the applause that they furtively dropped down from the wall at the rear… and were carried away for burial."
Nero & Agrippina
Although Nero found time for his concerts and games, he had bigger problems at home; his overly protective mother still believed herself to be the true force behind the throne. Agrippina even was bold enough to boast of her influence to others. Nero, of course, found this interference intolerable and made plans to end it. First, he moved her out of the palace. Next, he denied her the protection of her Praetorian Guard and banned her from all gladiatorial contests. Realizing that she was losing her grip on Nero, she fought back by throwing her support behind Britannicus, Nero’s stepbrother and Claudius’ son, but he mysteriously died at a family banquet - another poisoning victim. It did not take long for Agrippina to realize she was next.
Nero planned his mother’s death with great care, even bringing specialists to Rome from Alexandria to assist in the planning. He had an elaborate device created for her bedchamber ceiling which would collapse and crush her in her sleep; however, it proved to be too complicated to build and install. Next, he tried a specially designed boat that would collapse and sink, but she proved too smart and swam to the shore. Finally, his last attempt was the simplest and easiest: he had her stabbed to death, but her death would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Personal Life
Nero’s marriages and affairs also proved to be troublesome. He was married to the very popular Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messalina (a marriage made at his mother’s urging) but also having an affair with the very pregnant Poppaea Sabina (his mother detested her). In order to marry her, he accused Octavia of adultery and exiled her, later to be murdered (but made to look like a suicide). Poppaea, whose first husband was Rufius Crispinus (a Roman soldier), was married to the future Emperor Otho at the time of her affair with Nero. On the emperor’s orders, Otho was dispatched to the far reaches of the empire.
His exodus and Octavia’s death opened the door for Nero’s second marriage. It was even suspected that Poppaea was behind Octavia’s and possibly Agrippina’s death. The historian Tacitus in his Annals wrote:
Length of power had matured his daring, and his passion for Poppaea daily grew more ardent. As the woman had no hope of marriage for herself or of Octavia’s divorce while Agrippina lived, she would reproach the emperor with incessant vituperation … ‘Why,’ she asked, ‘was her marriage put off?’
Nero’s second marriage was not a happy one. Poppaea and Nero’s child died shortly after her birth. Poppaea’s next pregnancy ended in tragedy for both. After Nero and she argued late one night (Nero liked to stay out late), he supposedly kicked her in the stomach, killing both her and the unborn child.
Troubles & Disasters: The Great Fire
Although he had good advisors in Burrus and Seneca, the emperor’s reign would continue to see one catastrophe after another. First, there was the Piso Conspiracy, an unsuccessful plot to kill Nero, involving at least 19 senators as well as other leading citizens. Its failure brought about the execution of 41 individuals. Although it failed, it led to Nero being forever paranoid and untrusting. Next, there was the failed Boudicca rebellion in Britain as well as numerous insurrections in many outlying provinces including both Judea and Gaul; the latter two were a reaction to increased taxes.
The greatest threat to Nero’s reign, however, was the Great Fire, which began on 19 July 64 CE and lasted for six days. Ten of the 14 districts of the city were destroyed, hundreds died, thousands were left homeless, and looters ravaged the city. Since the fire, many questions have been raised. Did Nero play his lyre (not a fiddle which had not been invented) while the city burned? Did he start it? Historians differ in their response to these questions. Was he even in the city or did he watch it burn? Suetonius wrote: "Nero watched the conflagration from the Tower of Maecenas enrapt by what he called ‘the beauty of the flames’; then put on his tragedian’s costume and sang …" Tacitus seemed to remain neutral when he wrote: "A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts, worse, however, and more dreadful than any which have ever happened to this city by the violence of fire." The blame fell, of course, upon the heads of the persecuted Christians who had always viewed Nero as the anti-Christ.
Although he had to raise taxes to finance the rebuilding of Rome, the city was better in some ways than before: rebuilt residential districts, wider streets, brick buildings, and colonnades at street level to shelter to residents from the sun. Of course, the new Rome also included Nero’s Golden Palace (later to be buried by Emperor Trajan), containing gold plated ceilings, a lake, and exotic animals. Those who believe Nero started the fire point to his palace as the underlying reason.
Suicide
The fire, the conspiracy, the numerous insurrections, and the empty treasury led to Nero’s demise. The Senate declared him an enemy of the public and named Galba as the new emperor. Realizing his days as emperor were over, Nero attempted suicide while in the villa of his freedman Phaon but he failed and needed help to take his own life. His last words were: 'What an artist dies in me.'"
Nero
Posted from ancient.eu
Ancient History
World History
Military History
Rome
Posted 5 y ago
Responses: 13
14
14
0
Nero | Ancient Rome: The Rise And Fall Of An Empire | BBC Documentary
WARNING: Contains scenes of graphic violence. What happens when the world's most powerful man goes mad? Michael Sheen stars as Nero, who murdered his wife, m...
Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on February 11, 55, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman Emperorship, died under mysterious circumstances in Rome. This cleared the way for Nero [born as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and renamed Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus when his mother, Agrippina, married Emperor Claudius in 49 CE] succeeded Claudius as Roman Emperor.
Nero | Ancient Rome: The Rise And Fall Of An Empire | BBC Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ukIHEwE_zY
Images:
1. Emperor Nero crouches over his mother, Agrippina, after ordering her murder.
2. Henryk Siemiradzki Nero's torches 1882
3. Statue of Roman Emperor Nero in Anzio, Italy.
4. Henryk Siemiradzki, Christian Dirce, 1897, oil on canvas, 263 x 530 cm, collection of the National Museum in Warsaw
Background from {[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=nero-bio-10]}
Nero
Roman emperor, A. D. 54-68. The emperor Nero was the son of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, and of Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus Caesar, and sister of Caligula. Nero's original name was L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, but after the marriage of his mother with her uncle, the emperor Claudius, he was adopted by Claudius A. D. 50, and was called Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus. Claudius had a son, Britannicus, who was three or four years younger than Nero.
Nero was born at Antium, a favourite residence of many of the Roman families, on the coast of Latium on the 15th of December A. D. 37 (comp. Suet. Nero 100.6, ed. Burmann; Tac. Ann. 12.25, ed. Oberlin, and the notes in both). Shortly after his adoption by Claudius, Nero being then sixteen years of age, married Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messallina. Among his early instructors was Seneca. Nero had some talent and taste. He was fond of the arts, and made verses; but he was indolent and given to pleasure, and had no inclination for laborious studies. His character, which was naturally weak, was made worse by his education; and when he was in the possession of power he showed what a man may become who has not been subjected to a severe discipline, and who in a private station might be no worse than others who are rich and idle.
On the death of Claudius, A. D. 54, Agrippina, who had always designed her son to succeed to the power of the Caesars, kept the emperor's death secret for a while. All at once the gates of the palace were opened, and Nero was presented to the guards by Afranius Burrhus, praefectus praetorio, who announced Nero to them as their master. Some of them, it is said, asked where was Britannicus; but there was no effort made to proclaim Britannicus, and Nero being carried to the praetorian camp, was saluted as imperator by the soldiers, and promised them the usual donation. The senate confirmed the decision of the soldiers, and the provinces quietly received Nero as the new emperor. (Tac. Ann. 12.69; D. C. 61.1, &c.)
Nero showed at the commencement that he had not all the acquirements which the Romans had been accustomed to see in their emperors. His public addresses were written by Seneca, for Nero was deficient in one of the great accomplishments of a Roman, oratory. The beginning of his reign was no worse than might be expected in an illeducated youth of seventeen; and the senate were allowed to make some regulations which were supposed to be useful (Tac. Ann. 13.4). The affairs of the East required attention. The Less Armenia was given to Aristobulus, a Jew, and son of Herodes, king of Chalcis. Sophene was given to Sohemus.
The follies and crimes of Nero were owing to his own feeble character and the temper of his mother. This ambitious woman wished to govern in the name of her son, and she received all the external marks of respect which were due to one who possessed sovereign power. Seneca and Burrhus exerted their influence with Nero to oppose her designs, and thus a contest commenced which must end in the destruction of Agrippina or her opponents. Nero began to indulge his licentious inclinations without restraint, and one of his boon companions was an accomplished debauchee, Otho, who afterwards held the imperial power for a few months. Nero assumed the consulship A. D. 55, with L. Antistius Vetus for his colleague. The jealousy between him and his mother soon broke out into a quarrel, and Agrippina threatened to join Britannicus and raise him to his father's place. Nero's fears drove him to commit a crime which at once stamped his character and took away all hopes of his future life. Britannicus, who was just going to complete his fourteenth year, was poisoned by the emperor's order, at an entertainment where Agrippina and Octavia were present. Nero showed his temper towards his mother by depriving her of her Roman and German guard; but an appearance of reconciliation was brought about by the bold demeanour of Agrippina against some of her accusers, whom Nero punished. (Tac. Ann. 13.19-22.)
In A. D. 57 Nero was consul for the second time with L. Calpurnius Piso as his colleague, and in A. D. 58, for the third time with Valerius Messalla. Nero, who had always shown an aversion to his wife Octavia, was now captivated with the beauty of Poppaea Sabina, the wife of his companion Otho, a woman notorious for her dissolute conduct. Otho was got out of the way by being made governor of Lusitania, where he acquired some credit, and passed the ten remaining years of Nero's life.
The affairs of Armenia, which had been seized by the Parthians, occupied the Romans from the beginning of Nero's reign, and Domitius Corbulo was sent there to conduct the war. This vigorous commander re-established discipline among the troops. The chief struggle commenced A. D. 58, with Tiridates, who had been made king of Armenia by the Parthian king Vologeses, who was his brother. Corbulo was ambitious to make the Roman arms again triumphant in the countries in which L. Lucullus and Cn. Pompeius had once acquired military fame. After some attempt at negotiation, Corbulo prosecuted the war with great activity. He took and destroyed Artaxata, the capital of Armenia; and afterwards, marching to the town of Tigranocerta, which the Romans had formerly captured under Lucullus, he took this strong place also, or, according to other accounts, it surrendered like Artaxata (Tac. Ann. 13.41, 14.24). The capture of Tigranocerta took place A. D. 60, and the Romans were now complete masters of Armenia. The affairs of the Rhenish frontier were tolerably quiet in the early part of Nero's reign. The Roman soldiers, under Paullinus Pompeius on the lower Rhine, were employed in finishing the embankments which Drusus had begun sixty-three years before for checking the waters of the river; and L. Vetus formed the noble design of uniting the Arar (Saone) and Moselle by a canal, and thus connecting the Mediterranean and the German Ocean by an uninterrupted water communication, through the Rhone and the Rhine. But the mean jealousy of Aelius Gracilis, the legatus of Belgica, frustrated this design.
Nero's passion for Poppaea was probably the immediate cause of his mother's death. Poppaea aspired to marry the emperor, but she had no hopes of succeeding in her design while Agrippina lived, and accordingly she used all her arts to urge Nero to remove out of the way a woman who kept him in tutelage and probably aimed at his ruin. That Agrippina might have attempted to destroy her son, or at least to give the imperial power to some new husband of her choice, is probable enough; and it is a significant fact, that we find her own head and that of Nero on the same face of a medal, and that at the beginning of his reign she was hardly prevented from assuming the discharge of the imperial functions (Tac. Ann. 13.5). After an unsuccessful attempt to cause her death in a vessel near Baiae, she was assassinated by Nero's order (A. D. 59), with the approbation at least of Seneca and Burrhus, who saw that the time was come for the destruction either of the mother or the son (Tac. Ann. 14.7). The death of Agrippina was communicated to the senate by a letter which Seneca drew up, and this servile body, with the exception of Thrasea Paetus, returned their congratulations to the emperor, who shortly after returned to Rome. But though he was well received, he felt the punishment of his guilty conscience, and said that he was haunted by his mother's spectre (Suet. Nero 34). A great eclipse of the sun happened during the sacrifices which were made for the death of Agrippina, and there were other signs which superstition interpreted as tokens of the angler of the gods (D. C. 61.16, ed. Reimarus, and the note). Nero drowned his reflections in fresh riot, in which he was encouraged by a band of flatterers. One of his great passions was chariot-driving, and he was ambitious to gain credit as a musician, and actually appeared as a performer on the theatre. At the same time his extravagance was exhausting the finances, and preparing the way for his ruin, though unfortunately it was still deferred for some years.
In A. D. 60, Nero was consul for the fourth time with C. Cornelius Lentulus for his colleague. There was a comet in this year, which then, as in more recent times, was considered to portend some great change. In this year Tigranes was settled as king of Armenia, and the Roman commander Corbulo, leaving some soldiers to protect him, retired to his province of Syria. The fear of Nero now induced him to urge Rubellius Plautus, who belonged to the family of the Caesars through his mother Julia, the daughter of Drusus, to leave Rome. Plautus was a man of good character, and Nero considered him a dangerous rival. He retired to Asia, where he was put to death two years after by Nero's order (Tac. Ann. 14.22; D. C. 62.14). In A. D. 61, the great rising in Britain under Boadicea took place, which was put down by the ability and vigour of the Roman commander Suetonius Paullinus.
The praetor Antistius was charged with writing scandalous verses against Nero, and he was tried under the law of majestas, and only saved by Thrasea from being condemned to death by the senate. Antistius was banished, and his property made public. Fabricius Veiento, who had written freely against the senate and the priests, was convicted and banished from Italy. His writings were ordered to be burnt, the consequence of which was they were eagerly sought after and read : when they were no longer forbidden they were soon forgotten, as Tacitus remarks (Ann. 14.49), and his remark has much practical wisdom in it. The death of Burrhus (A. D. 62) was a calamity to the state. Nero placed in command of the praetorian troops, Fennius Rufus and Sofonius Tigellinus: Rufus was an honest inactive man; Tigellinus was a villain, whose name has been rendered infamous by the crimes to which he urged his master, and those which he committed himself. Seneca, who saw his credit going, wisely asked leave to retire; and the philosopher, who could not approve of all Nero's excesses, though his own moral character is at least doubtful, left his old pupil to follow his own way and the counsels of the worst men in Rome.
Nero was now more at liberty. In order that he might marry Poppaea, he divorced his wife Octavia, on the alleged ground of sterility, and in eighteen days he married Poppaea. Not satisfied with putting away his wife, he was instigated by Poppaea to charge her with adultery, for which there was not the slightest ground, and she was banished to the little island of Pandataria, where she was shortly after put to death. According to Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 14.64) Octavia was only in her twentieth year; her unhappy life and her untimely death were the subject of general commiseration.
The affairs of Armenia (A. D. 62) were still in a troubled state, and the accounts of the historians of the period are not very clear. The Parthians again invaded Armenia, and Tiridates attempted to recover it from Tigranes. It seems to have been agreed between Vologeses and Corbulo that Tiridates should have Armenia, and that hostilities should cease. But the ambassadors whom Vologeses sent to Rome, returned without accomplishing the object of their mission, and the war against the Parthians in Armenia was renewed under L. Caesennius Paetus. But the incompetence of the general caused the ruin of the enterprise, and he was forced to sue for terms to Vologeses, and to consent to evacuate Armenia (Tac. Ann. 15.16; D. C. 62.21). In the following year Corbulo came to terms with Tiridates, who did homage to the portrait of Nero in the presence of the Roman commander (Tac. Ann. 15.30), and promised that he would go to Rome, as soon as he could prepare for his journey, to ask the throne of Armenia from the Roman emperor. The town of Pompeii in Campania was nearly destroyed in this year by an earthquake. Poppaea gave birth at Antium to a daughter, who received the title of Augusta, which was also given to the mother. The joy of Nero was unbounded, but the child died before it was four months old.
The origin of the dreadful conflagration at Rome (A. D. 64) is uncertain. It is hardly credible that the city was fired by Nero's order, though Dion and Suetonius both attest the fact, but these writers are always ready to believe a scandalous tale. Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 15.38) leaves the matter doubtful. The fire originated in that part of the circus which is contiguous to the Caelian and Palatine hills, and of the fourteen regiones of Rome three were totally destroyed, and in seven others only a few halfburnt houses remained. A prodigious quantity of property and valuable works of art were burnt, and many lives were lost. The emperor set about rebuilding the city on an improved plan, with wider streets, though it is doubtful if the salubrity of Rome was improved by widening the streets and making the houses lower, for there was less protection against the heat. Nero found money for his purposes by acts of oppression and violence, and even the temples were robbed of their wealth. With these means he began to erect his sumptuous golden palace, on a scale of magnitude and splendour which almost surpasses belief. The vestibule contained a colossal statue of himself one hundred and twenty feet high (Suet. Nero 100.31; Martial, Spect. Ep. 2). The odium of the conflagration which the emperor could not remove from himself, he tried to throw on the Christians, who were then numerous-in Rome, and many of them were put to a cruel death (Tac. Ann. 15.44, and the note of Lipsius).
The tyranny of Nero at last (A. D. 65) led to the organisation of a formidable conspiracy against him, which was discovered by Milichus, a freedman of Flavius Scevinus, a senator and one of the conspirators. The discovery was followed by many executions. C. Calpurnius Piso was put to death, and the poet Lucan, a vile flatterer of Nero (Pharsal 1.33, &c.), 1 had the favour of being allowed to open his veins. Plautius Lateranus was hurried to death without having time allowed to embrace his children. It is not certain if Seneca was privy to the conspiracy: Dion, of course, says that he was. It is probable that some proposals might have been made to him by the conspirators, and it is probable that he declined to join them. However this may be, the time was come for Nero to get rid of his old master, and, with his counsellors Poppaea and Tigellinus near him, he sent Seneca orders to die. The philosopher opened his veins, and, after long suffering, he was taken into a bath or vapour room, which stifled him. It seems that Seneca died about the time when the conspiracy was discovered ; Lucan and others died after him. The senate was assembled, as if they were going to hear the results of a successful war, and Tigellinus was rewarded with the triumphal ornaments. (Tac. Ann. 15.72.)
The death of Poppaea came next. Her brutal husband, in a fit of passion, kicked her when she was with child, and she died of the blow. Her body was not burnt, but embalmed and placed in the sepulchre of the Julii. Nero now proposed to marry Antonia, the daughter of the emperor Claudius and his sister by adoption, but she refused the honour, and was consequently put to death. Nero, however, did marry Statilia Messallina, the widow of Vestinus, whom he put to death, because he had married Messallina, with whom Nero had cohabited.
The catalogue of the crimes of Nero makes the greater part of his life, but his crimes show the character of the man and of the times, and to what a state of abject degradation the Roman senate was reduced, for the senate was made the instrument of murder. The jurist C. Cassius Longinus was exiled to Sardinia. L. Junius Silanus Torquatus, a man of merit, L. Antistins Vetus, his mother-in-law Sextia, and his daughter Pollutia, the wife of Rubellius Plautus, were all sacrificed. Virtue in any form was the object of Nero's fear. For some reason or caprice the emperor gave a large sum, which we may assume was public money, to rebuild Lugdunum (Lyon), which had suffered by a fire; and the town showed its gratitude, by espousing his cause when he was deserted by every body. The grant, however, was made some years after the conflagration.
In the reign of Nero (A. D. 66) Apollonius of Tvana visited Rome, and, though he was accused of magic, he had the good luck to escape. Nero now became jealous of the philosophers, and Musonius Rufus, a Roman eques and a stoic philosopher, was banished by the emperor. The fragment of the sixteenth book of the Annals of Tacitus concludes with the account of the death of Annaeus Mella, the father of Lucan, and C. Petronius, a man of pleasure, but probably not the author of the Satyrica. Nero, as Tacitus says (Ann. 16.21), now attacked virtue itself in the persons of Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. The crime of Thrasea was his virtue: the charge against him was that he kept away from the senate, and by his absence condemned the proceedings of that body. The senate condemned him to die, but he had the choice of the mode of death, and he opened his veins. Soranus was rich, and that made part of his crime. He was condemned with his young daughter Servilia, who had without his knowledge consulted the fortune-tellers to know what would be her father's fate. (Tac. Ann. 16.30, &c.) With the death of Thrasea, who, as the blood flowed from his veins, declared it to be a libation to Jupiter the Liberator, the fragment of the sixteenth book of Tacitus ends, and the fate of the despicable tyrant has not been transmitted to us in the words of the indignant historian, who himself is compelled to apologise for his tedious record of crimes and bloodshed. (Tac. Ann. 16.16.)
The time chosen for the death of Thrasea and Soranus was that when Tiridates was preparing to make his entry into Rome. The Armenian king came by land to Rome with his wife and his children. The provinces that he passed through had to support the expense of his numerous train. He entered Italy from Illyricum, and was received by Nero at Naples, before whom he fell on his knees, and acknowledged him as his lord. Tiridates was conducted to Rome, where he humbled himself before Nero in the theatre, who gave him the crown .of Armenia and permission to rebuild Artaxata (D. C. 63.6). Tiridates went home by way of Brundusium. Vologeses was invited to Rome by Nero to go through the' same ceremony, but he declined the honour, and suggested that if Nero wished to see him he should come to Asia. (D. C. 63.7.)
Nero formed some plans for extending the empire, and various expeditions were talked of, but Nero was not a soldier: he had not even that Roman virtue. In the latter part of this year he visited Achaea with a great train, to show his skill to the Greeks as a musician and charioteer, and to receive the honours which were liberally bestowed upon him. While Nero was in Achaea, Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, sent him intelligence of his defeat by the Jews, who were in arms; on which Nero sent Vespasian, the future emperor, to carry on the war against them, and Mucianus to take the administration of Syria.
In the year A. D. 67 Nero was present at the Olympic games, which had been deferred from the year 65 in order that so distinguished a person might be present. To commemorate his visit he declared all Achaea to be free, which was publicly proclaimed at Corinth on the day of the celebration of the Isthmian games. But the Greeks paid dear for what they got, by the price of every thing being raised in consequence of Nero's visit; and they witnessed one of his acts of cruelty, in putting to death, at the Isthmian games, a singer whose voice drowned that of the imperial performer. (Lucian, Nero, vol. iii. p. 642, ed. Hemst.) Nero also paid a visit to Delphi, and got a kind of indirect promise of a long life; but other matters reported about this visit are somewhat confusedly told by different authorities. He also designed a canal across the Isthmus, which was commenced with great parade, and Nero himself first struck the ground with a golden spade. The works were carried on vigorously for a time, but were suspended by his own orders. While Nero was in Greece he summoned Corbulo there in an affectionate letter, but, on the old soldier arriving at Cenchreae, Nero sent orders to put him to death, which Corbulo anticipated by stabbing himself. Thus perished a man who had served the empire and the emperor faithfully, and whose military talent and integrity entitled him to the name of a genuine Roman. (Dion. 63.17.)
Nero had left Helius a freedman in the administration of Rome, with full power to do as he pleased, which power he abused. Helius, foreseeing the mischief that was preparing for his master, wrote to request him to return to Rome, and finally he went to Greece to urge his departure. Nero left Greece probably in the autumn of A. D. 67. He entered Rome in triumph, as befitted an Olympic victor, through a breach made in the walls, riding in the car of Augustus, with a musician at his side; and he displayed the numerous crowns that he had received in his Grecian visit. Music, chariot driving, and the like amusements, occupied this foolish man until, as Tillemont naively remarks, the rising in Spain and Gaul gave him other occupation.
Silius Italicus, the poet, and Galerius Trachalus were consuls A. D. 68, the last year of Nero's life. The storm that had long been preparing broke out in Gaul, where Julius Vindex, the governor of Celtica, called the people together, and, pointing out their grievances, and pourtraying the despicable character of Nero, urged them to revolt. Vindex was soon at the head of a large army, and he wrote to Galba, who was governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, to offer his assistance in raising him to the imperial power. Galba at the same time learned that Nero had sent orders to put him to death, on which he made a public harangue against the crimes of Nero, and was proclaimed emperor; but he only assumed the title of legatus of the senate and the Roman people. Nero was at Naples when he heard of the rising in Gaul. which gave him little concern, and he went on with his ordinary amusements. At last he came to Rome, where he heard of the insurrection of Galba, which threw him into a violent fit of passion and alarm, but he had neither ability nor courage to organise any effectual means of resistance. The senate declared Galba an enemy of the state; and Nero, for some reason or other, deprived the two consuls of their office, and made himself sole consul. This was his fifth consulate. Possibly he had some vague idea of putting himself more distinctly at the head of affairs with the title of sole consul, which Cn. Pompeius had once enjoyed before him and C. Julius Caesar.
Verginius Rufus, governor in Upper Germany, a man of ability and integrity, was not favourable to the pretensions of Galba. Rufus first marched against Vindex, and was supported by those parts of Gaul which bordered on the Rhine; the town of Lyon, with others, declared against Vindex. Verginius laid siege to Vesontio (Besanqon), and Vindex came to relieve it. The two generals had a conference, and appear to have come to some agreement; but, as Vindex was going to enter the town, the soldiers of Verginius, thinking that he was about to attack them, fell on the troops of Vindex. The whole affair is very confused; but the fact that Vindex perished, or killed himself, is certain. The soldiers now destroyed the statues of Nero, and proclaimed Verginius as Augustus; but he steadily refused the honour, and declared that he would submit to the orders of the senate. The death of Vindex discouraged Galba, who was beginning to lose all hopes, when he received intelligence from Rome that he was recognised as the successor of Nero.
A famine at Rome, and the exertion that Nero was making to raise money, hastened his ruin. Nymphidius Sabinus, who was now praefectus praetorio with Tigellinus, taking advantage of a rumour that Nero was going to fly to Egypt, persuaded the troops to proclaim Galba. Nero was immediately deserted. He escaped from the palace at night with a few freedmen, and made his wav to a house about four miles from Rome, which belonged to Phaon, one of his freedmen, where he passed the night and part of the following day in a state of agonising terror. His hiding-place being known, a centurion with some soldiers was sent to seize him. Though a coward, Nero thought a voluntary death better than the indignities which he knew were preparing for him; and, after some irresolution, and with the aid of his secretary Epaphroditus, he gave himself a mortal wound when he heard the trampling of the horses on which his pursuers were mounted. The centurion on entering attempted to stop the flow of blood, but Nero saying, "It is too late. Is this your fidelity?" expired with a horrid stare.
The body of Nero received funeral honours suitable to his rank, and his ashes were placed in the sepulchre of the Domitii by two of his nurses and his concubine Acte, who had won Nero's affections from his wife Octavia at the beginning of his reign. (Tac. Ann. 13.12; Suet. Nero 50.) Suetonius, after his manner, gives a description of Nero's person, which is not very flattering: the "cervix obesa" of Suetonius is a characteristic of Nero's bust. (Lib. of Entertaining Knowledge, Townley Gallery, vol. ii. p. 28.)
In his youth Nero was instructed in all the liberal knowledge of the time except philosophy; and he was turned from the study of the old Roman orators by his master Seneca. Accordingly, he applied himself to poetry, and Suetonius says that his verses were not made for him, as some suppose, for the biographer had seen and examined some of Nero's writing-tablets and small books, in which the writing was in his own hand, with many erasures and cancellings and interlineations. He had also skill in painting and modelling. Though profuse and fond of pomp and splendour, Nero had apparently some taste. The Apollo Belvedere and the Fighting Gladiator, as it is called, by Agasias, were found in the ruins of a villa at Antium, which is conjectured to have belonged to Nero. (See Thiersch, Ueber die Epochen der Bildenden Kunst, &c. p. 312, 2d ed.)
Nero's progress in crime is easily traced, and the lesson is worth reading. Without a good education, and with no talent for his high station, he was placed in a position of danger from the first. He was sensual, and fond of idle display, and then he became greedy of money to satisfy his expenses; he was timid, and by consequence he became cruel when he anticipated danger; and, like other murderers, his first crime, the poisoning of Britannicus, made him capable of another. But, contemptible and cruel as he was, there are many persons who, in the same situation, might run the same guilty career. He was only in his thirty-first year when he died, and he had held the supreme power for thirteen years and eight months. He was the last of the descendants of Julia, the sister of the dictator Caesar.
There were a few writers in the time of Nero who have been preserved-Persius the satirist, Lucan, the author of the Pharsalia, and Seneca, the preceptor of Nero. The jurists, C. Cassius Longinus, after whom the Sabiniani were sometimes called Cassiani, and Nerva, the father of the emperor Nerva, lived under Nero. (Tac. Ann. xiii.xvi.; Suet. Ner.; Dio Cass. lxi.-lxiii. ed. Reimarus. All the authorities for the facts of Nero's life are collected by Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, vol. i.)
[G.L]
1 * The critics take the verses to be ironical. Let the reader judge.
William Smith. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. London. John Murray: printed by Spottiswoode and Co., New-Street Square and Parliament Street. In the article on Soranus, we find: "at this present time (1848)" and this date seems to reflect the dates of works cited. 1873 - probably the printing date.
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D GySgt Thomas Vick MSG Felipe De Leon Brown SGT Denny Espinosa SSG Stephen Rogerson SPC Matthew Lamb LTC (Join to see) LTC Greg Henning Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. Maj Kim Patterson PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) SSG Franklin Briant SPC Woody Bullard TSgt David L. MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi
Nero | Ancient Rome: The Rise And Fall Of An Empire | BBC Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ukIHEwE_zY
Images:
1. Emperor Nero crouches over his mother, Agrippina, after ordering her murder.
2. Henryk Siemiradzki Nero's torches 1882
3. Statue of Roman Emperor Nero in Anzio, Italy.
4. Henryk Siemiradzki, Christian Dirce, 1897, oil on canvas, 263 x 530 cm, collection of the National Museum in Warsaw
Background from {[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0104:entry=nero-bio-10]}
Nero
Roman emperor, A. D. 54-68. The emperor Nero was the son of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, and of Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus Caesar, and sister of Caligula. Nero's original name was L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, but after the marriage of his mother with her uncle, the emperor Claudius, he was adopted by Claudius A. D. 50, and was called Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus. Claudius had a son, Britannicus, who was three or four years younger than Nero.
Nero was born at Antium, a favourite residence of many of the Roman families, on the coast of Latium on the 15th of December A. D. 37 (comp. Suet. Nero 100.6, ed. Burmann; Tac. Ann. 12.25, ed. Oberlin, and the notes in both). Shortly after his adoption by Claudius, Nero being then sixteen years of age, married Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messallina. Among his early instructors was Seneca. Nero had some talent and taste. He was fond of the arts, and made verses; but he was indolent and given to pleasure, and had no inclination for laborious studies. His character, which was naturally weak, was made worse by his education; and when he was in the possession of power he showed what a man may become who has not been subjected to a severe discipline, and who in a private station might be no worse than others who are rich and idle.
On the death of Claudius, A. D. 54, Agrippina, who had always designed her son to succeed to the power of the Caesars, kept the emperor's death secret for a while. All at once the gates of the palace were opened, and Nero was presented to the guards by Afranius Burrhus, praefectus praetorio, who announced Nero to them as their master. Some of them, it is said, asked where was Britannicus; but there was no effort made to proclaim Britannicus, and Nero being carried to the praetorian camp, was saluted as imperator by the soldiers, and promised them the usual donation. The senate confirmed the decision of the soldiers, and the provinces quietly received Nero as the new emperor. (Tac. Ann. 12.69; D. C. 61.1, &c.)
Nero showed at the commencement that he had not all the acquirements which the Romans had been accustomed to see in their emperors. His public addresses were written by Seneca, for Nero was deficient in one of the great accomplishments of a Roman, oratory. The beginning of his reign was no worse than might be expected in an illeducated youth of seventeen; and the senate were allowed to make some regulations which were supposed to be useful (Tac. Ann. 13.4). The affairs of the East required attention. The Less Armenia was given to Aristobulus, a Jew, and son of Herodes, king of Chalcis. Sophene was given to Sohemus.
The follies and crimes of Nero were owing to his own feeble character and the temper of his mother. This ambitious woman wished to govern in the name of her son, and she received all the external marks of respect which were due to one who possessed sovereign power. Seneca and Burrhus exerted their influence with Nero to oppose her designs, and thus a contest commenced which must end in the destruction of Agrippina or her opponents. Nero began to indulge his licentious inclinations without restraint, and one of his boon companions was an accomplished debauchee, Otho, who afterwards held the imperial power for a few months. Nero assumed the consulship A. D. 55, with L. Antistius Vetus for his colleague. The jealousy between him and his mother soon broke out into a quarrel, and Agrippina threatened to join Britannicus and raise him to his father's place. Nero's fears drove him to commit a crime which at once stamped his character and took away all hopes of his future life. Britannicus, who was just going to complete his fourteenth year, was poisoned by the emperor's order, at an entertainment where Agrippina and Octavia were present. Nero showed his temper towards his mother by depriving her of her Roman and German guard; but an appearance of reconciliation was brought about by the bold demeanour of Agrippina against some of her accusers, whom Nero punished. (Tac. Ann. 13.19-22.)
In A. D. 57 Nero was consul for the second time with L. Calpurnius Piso as his colleague, and in A. D. 58, for the third time with Valerius Messalla. Nero, who had always shown an aversion to his wife Octavia, was now captivated with the beauty of Poppaea Sabina, the wife of his companion Otho, a woman notorious for her dissolute conduct. Otho was got out of the way by being made governor of Lusitania, where he acquired some credit, and passed the ten remaining years of Nero's life.
The affairs of Armenia, which had been seized by the Parthians, occupied the Romans from the beginning of Nero's reign, and Domitius Corbulo was sent there to conduct the war. This vigorous commander re-established discipline among the troops. The chief struggle commenced A. D. 58, with Tiridates, who had been made king of Armenia by the Parthian king Vologeses, who was his brother. Corbulo was ambitious to make the Roman arms again triumphant in the countries in which L. Lucullus and Cn. Pompeius had once acquired military fame. After some attempt at negotiation, Corbulo prosecuted the war with great activity. He took and destroyed Artaxata, the capital of Armenia; and afterwards, marching to the town of Tigranocerta, which the Romans had formerly captured under Lucullus, he took this strong place also, or, according to other accounts, it surrendered like Artaxata (Tac. Ann. 13.41, 14.24). The capture of Tigranocerta took place A. D. 60, and the Romans were now complete masters of Armenia. The affairs of the Rhenish frontier were tolerably quiet in the early part of Nero's reign. The Roman soldiers, under Paullinus Pompeius on the lower Rhine, were employed in finishing the embankments which Drusus had begun sixty-three years before for checking the waters of the river; and L. Vetus formed the noble design of uniting the Arar (Saone) and Moselle by a canal, and thus connecting the Mediterranean and the German Ocean by an uninterrupted water communication, through the Rhone and the Rhine. But the mean jealousy of Aelius Gracilis, the legatus of Belgica, frustrated this design.
Nero's passion for Poppaea was probably the immediate cause of his mother's death. Poppaea aspired to marry the emperor, but she had no hopes of succeeding in her design while Agrippina lived, and accordingly she used all her arts to urge Nero to remove out of the way a woman who kept him in tutelage and probably aimed at his ruin. That Agrippina might have attempted to destroy her son, or at least to give the imperial power to some new husband of her choice, is probable enough; and it is a significant fact, that we find her own head and that of Nero on the same face of a medal, and that at the beginning of his reign she was hardly prevented from assuming the discharge of the imperial functions (Tac. Ann. 13.5). After an unsuccessful attempt to cause her death in a vessel near Baiae, she was assassinated by Nero's order (A. D. 59), with the approbation at least of Seneca and Burrhus, who saw that the time was come for the destruction either of the mother or the son (Tac. Ann. 14.7). The death of Agrippina was communicated to the senate by a letter which Seneca drew up, and this servile body, with the exception of Thrasea Paetus, returned their congratulations to the emperor, who shortly after returned to Rome. But though he was well received, he felt the punishment of his guilty conscience, and said that he was haunted by his mother's spectre (Suet. Nero 34). A great eclipse of the sun happened during the sacrifices which were made for the death of Agrippina, and there were other signs which superstition interpreted as tokens of the angler of the gods (D. C. 61.16, ed. Reimarus, and the note). Nero drowned his reflections in fresh riot, in which he was encouraged by a band of flatterers. One of his great passions was chariot-driving, and he was ambitious to gain credit as a musician, and actually appeared as a performer on the theatre. At the same time his extravagance was exhausting the finances, and preparing the way for his ruin, though unfortunately it was still deferred for some years.
In A. D. 60, Nero was consul for the fourth time with C. Cornelius Lentulus for his colleague. There was a comet in this year, which then, as in more recent times, was considered to portend some great change. In this year Tigranes was settled as king of Armenia, and the Roman commander Corbulo, leaving some soldiers to protect him, retired to his province of Syria. The fear of Nero now induced him to urge Rubellius Plautus, who belonged to the family of the Caesars through his mother Julia, the daughter of Drusus, to leave Rome. Plautus was a man of good character, and Nero considered him a dangerous rival. He retired to Asia, where he was put to death two years after by Nero's order (Tac. Ann. 14.22; D. C. 62.14). In A. D. 61, the great rising in Britain under Boadicea took place, which was put down by the ability and vigour of the Roman commander Suetonius Paullinus.
The praetor Antistius was charged with writing scandalous verses against Nero, and he was tried under the law of majestas, and only saved by Thrasea from being condemned to death by the senate. Antistius was banished, and his property made public. Fabricius Veiento, who had written freely against the senate and the priests, was convicted and banished from Italy. His writings were ordered to be burnt, the consequence of which was they were eagerly sought after and read : when they were no longer forbidden they were soon forgotten, as Tacitus remarks (Ann. 14.49), and his remark has much practical wisdom in it. The death of Burrhus (A. D. 62) was a calamity to the state. Nero placed in command of the praetorian troops, Fennius Rufus and Sofonius Tigellinus: Rufus was an honest inactive man; Tigellinus was a villain, whose name has been rendered infamous by the crimes to which he urged his master, and those which he committed himself. Seneca, who saw his credit going, wisely asked leave to retire; and the philosopher, who could not approve of all Nero's excesses, though his own moral character is at least doubtful, left his old pupil to follow his own way and the counsels of the worst men in Rome.
Nero was now more at liberty. In order that he might marry Poppaea, he divorced his wife Octavia, on the alleged ground of sterility, and in eighteen days he married Poppaea. Not satisfied with putting away his wife, he was instigated by Poppaea to charge her with adultery, for which there was not the slightest ground, and she was banished to the little island of Pandataria, where she was shortly after put to death. According to Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 14.64) Octavia was only in her twentieth year; her unhappy life and her untimely death were the subject of general commiseration.
The affairs of Armenia (A. D. 62) were still in a troubled state, and the accounts of the historians of the period are not very clear. The Parthians again invaded Armenia, and Tiridates attempted to recover it from Tigranes. It seems to have been agreed between Vologeses and Corbulo that Tiridates should have Armenia, and that hostilities should cease. But the ambassadors whom Vologeses sent to Rome, returned without accomplishing the object of their mission, and the war against the Parthians in Armenia was renewed under L. Caesennius Paetus. But the incompetence of the general caused the ruin of the enterprise, and he was forced to sue for terms to Vologeses, and to consent to evacuate Armenia (Tac. Ann. 15.16; D. C. 62.21). In the following year Corbulo came to terms with Tiridates, who did homage to the portrait of Nero in the presence of the Roman commander (Tac. Ann. 15.30), and promised that he would go to Rome, as soon as he could prepare for his journey, to ask the throne of Armenia from the Roman emperor. The town of Pompeii in Campania was nearly destroyed in this year by an earthquake. Poppaea gave birth at Antium to a daughter, who received the title of Augusta, which was also given to the mother. The joy of Nero was unbounded, but the child died before it was four months old.
The origin of the dreadful conflagration at Rome (A. D. 64) is uncertain. It is hardly credible that the city was fired by Nero's order, though Dion and Suetonius both attest the fact, but these writers are always ready to believe a scandalous tale. Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 15.38) leaves the matter doubtful. The fire originated in that part of the circus which is contiguous to the Caelian and Palatine hills, and of the fourteen regiones of Rome three were totally destroyed, and in seven others only a few halfburnt houses remained. A prodigious quantity of property and valuable works of art were burnt, and many lives were lost. The emperor set about rebuilding the city on an improved plan, with wider streets, though it is doubtful if the salubrity of Rome was improved by widening the streets and making the houses lower, for there was less protection against the heat. Nero found money for his purposes by acts of oppression and violence, and even the temples were robbed of their wealth. With these means he began to erect his sumptuous golden palace, on a scale of magnitude and splendour which almost surpasses belief. The vestibule contained a colossal statue of himself one hundred and twenty feet high (Suet. Nero 100.31; Martial, Spect. Ep. 2). The odium of the conflagration which the emperor could not remove from himself, he tried to throw on the Christians, who were then numerous-in Rome, and many of them were put to a cruel death (Tac. Ann. 15.44, and the note of Lipsius).
The tyranny of Nero at last (A. D. 65) led to the organisation of a formidable conspiracy against him, which was discovered by Milichus, a freedman of Flavius Scevinus, a senator and one of the conspirators. The discovery was followed by many executions. C. Calpurnius Piso was put to death, and the poet Lucan, a vile flatterer of Nero (Pharsal 1.33, &c.), 1 had the favour of being allowed to open his veins. Plautius Lateranus was hurried to death without having time allowed to embrace his children. It is not certain if Seneca was privy to the conspiracy: Dion, of course, says that he was. It is probable that some proposals might have been made to him by the conspirators, and it is probable that he declined to join them. However this may be, the time was come for Nero to get rid of his old master, and, with his counsellors Poppaea and Tigellinus near him, he sent Seneca orders to die. The philosopher opened his veins, and, after long suffering, he was taken into a bath or vapour room, which stifled him. It seems that Seneca died about the time when the conspiracy was discovered ; Lucan and others died after him. The senate was assembled, as if they were going to hear the results of a successful war, and Tigellinus was rewarded with the triumphal ornaments. (Tac. Ann. 15.72.)
The death of Poppaea came next. Her brutal husband, in a fit of passion, kicked her when she was with child, and she died of the blow. Her body was not burnt, but embalmed and placed in the sepulchre of the Julii. Nero now proposed to marry Antonia, the daughter of the emperor Claudius and his sister by adoption, but she refused the honour, and was consequently put to death. Nero, however, did marry Statilia Messallina, the widow of Vestinus, whom he put to death, because he had married Messallina, with whom Nero had cohabited.
The catalogue of the crimes of Nero makes the greater part of his life, but his crimes show the character of the man and of the times, and to what a state of abject degradation the Roman senate was reduced, for the senate was made the instrument of murder. The jurist C. Cassius Longinus was exiled to Sardinia. L. Junius Silanus Torquatus, a man of merit, L. Antistins Vetus, his mother-in-law Sextia, and his daughter Pollutia, the wife of Rubellius Plautus, were all sacrificed. Virtue in any form was the object of Nero's fear. For some reason or caprice the emperor gave a large sum, which we may assume was public money, to rebuild Lugdunum (Lyon), which had suffered by a fire; and the town showed its gratitude, by espousing his cause when he was deserted by every body. The grant, however, was made some years after the conflagration.
In the reign of Nero (A. D. 66) Apollonius of Tvana visited Rome, and, though he was accused of magic, he had the good luck to escape. Nero now became jealous of the philosophers, and Musonius Rufus, a Roman eques and a stoic philosopher, was banished by the emperor. The fragment of the sixteenth book of the Annals of Tacitus concludes with the account of the death of Annaeus Mella, the father of Lucan, and C. Petronius, a man of pleasure, but probably not the author of the Satyrica. Nero, as Tacitus says (Ann. 16.21), now attacked virtue itself in the persons of Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. The crime of Thrasea was his virtue: the charge against him was that he kept away from the senate, and by his absence condemned the proceedings of that body. The senate condemned him to die, but he had the choice of the mode of death, and he opened his veins. Soranus was rich, and that made part of his crime. He was condemned with his young daughter Servilia, who had without his knowledge consulted the fortune-tellers to know what would be her father's fate. (Tac. Ann. 16.30, &c.) With the death of Thrasea, who, as the blood flowed from his veins, declared it to be a libation to Jupiter the Liberator, the fragment of the sixteenth book of Tacitus ends, and the fate of the despicable tyrant has not been transmitted to us in the words of the indignant historian, who himself is compelled to apologise for his tedious record of crimes and bloodshed. (Tac. Ann. 16.16.)
The time chosen for the death of Thrasea and Soranus was that when Tiridates was preparing to make his entry into Rome. The Armenian king came by land to Rome with his wife and his children. The provinces that he passed through had to support the expense of his numerous train. He entered Italy from Illyricum, and was received by Nero at Naples, before whom he fell on his knees, and acknowledged him as his lord. Tiridates was conducted to Rome, where he humbled himself before Nero in the theatre, who gave him the crown .of Armenia and permission to rebuild Artaxata (D. C. 63.6). Tiridates went home by way of Brundusium. Vologeses was invited to Rome by Nero to go through the' same ceremony, but he declined the honour, and suggested that if Nero wished to see him he should come to Asia. (D. C. 63.7.)
Nero formed some plans for extending the empire, and various expeditions were talked of, but Nero was not a soldier: he had not even that Roman virtue. In the latter part of this year he visited Achaea with a great train, to show his skill to the Greeks as a musician and charioteer, and to receive the honours which were liberally bestowed upon him. While Nero was in Achaea, Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, sent him intelligence of his defeat by the Jews, who were in arms; on which Nero sent Vespasian, the future emperor, to carry on the war against them, and Mucianus to take the administration of Syria.
In the year A. D. 67 Nero was present at the Olympic games, which had been deferred from the year 65 in order that so distinguished a person might be present. To commemorate his visit he declared all Achaea to be free, which was publicly proclaimed at Corinth on the day of the celebration of the Isthmian games. But the Greeks paid dear for what they got, by the price of every thing being raised in consequence of Nero's visit; and they witnessed one of his acts of cruelty, in putting to death, at the Isthmian games, a singer whose voice drowned that of the imperial performer. (Lucian, Nero, vol. iii. p. 642, ed. Hemst.) Nero also paid a visit to Delphi, and got a kind of indirect promise of a long life; but other matters reported about this visit are somewhat confusedly told by different authorities. He also designed a canal across the Isthmus, which was commenced with great parade, and Nero himself first struck the ground with a golden spade. The works were carried on vigorously for a time, but were suspended by his own orders. While Nero was in Greece he summoned Corbulo there in an affectionate letter, but, on the old soldier arriving at Cenchreae, Nero sent orders to put him to death, which Corbulo anticipated by stabbing himself. Thus perished a man who had served the empire and the emperor faithfully, and whose military talent and integrity entitled him to the name of a genuine Roman. (Dion. 63.17.)
Nero had left Helius a freedman in the administration of Rome, with full power to do as he pleased, which power he abused. Helius, foreseeing the mischief that was preparing for his master, wrote to request him to return to Rome, and finally he went to Greece to urge his departure. Nero left Greece probably in the autumn of A. D. 67. He entered Rome in triumph, as befitted an Olympic victor, through a breach made in the walls, riding in the car of Augustus, with a musician at his side; and he displayed the numerous crowns that he had received in his Grecian visit. Music, chariot driving, and the like amusements, occupied this foolish man until, as Tillemont naively remarks, the rising in Spain and Gaul gave him other occupation.
Silius Italicus, the poet, and Galerius Trachalus were consuls A. D. 68, the last year of Nero's life. The storm that had long been preparing broke out in Gaul, where Julius Vindex, the governor of Celtica, called the people together, and, pointing out their grievances, and pourtraying the despicable character of Nero, urged them to revolt. Vindex was soon at the head of a large army, and he wrote to Galba, who was governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, to offer his assistance in raising him to the imperial power. Galba at the same time learned that Nero had sent orders to put him to death, on which he made a public harangue against the crimes of Nero, and was proclaimed emperor; but he only assumed the title of legatus of the senate and the Roman people. Nero was at Naples when he heard of the rising in Gaul. which gave him little concern, and he went on with his ordinary amusements. At last he came to Rome, where he heard of the insurrection of Galba, which threw him into a violent fit of passion and alarm, but he had neither ability nor courage to organise any effectual means of resistance. The senate declared Galba an enemy of the state; and Nero, for some reason or other, deprived the two consuls of their office, and made himself sole consul. This was his fifth consulate. Possibly he had some vague idea of putting himself more distinctly at the head of affairs with the title of sole consul, which Cn. Pompeius had once enjoyed before him and C. Julius Caesar.
Verginius Rufus, governor in Upper Germany, a man of ability and integrity, was not favourable to the pretensions of Galba. Rufus first marched against Vindex, and was supported by those parts of Gaul which bordered on the Rhine; the town of Lyon, with others, declared against Vindex. Verginius laid siege to Vesontio (Besanqon), and Vindex came to relieve it. The two generals had a conference, and appear to have come to some agreement; but, as Vindex was going to enter the town, the soldiers of Verginius, thinking that he was about to attack them, fell on the troops of Vindex. The whole affair is very confused; but the fact that Vindex perished, or killed himself, is certain. The soldiers now destroyed the statues of Nero, and proclaimed Verginius as Augustus; but he steadily refused the honour, and declared that he would submit to the orders of the senate. The death of Vindex discouraged Galba, who was beginning to lose all hopes, when he received intelligence from Rome that he was recognised as the successor of Nero.
A famine at Rome, and the exertion that Nero was making to raise money, hastened his ruin. Nymphidius Sabinus, who was now praefectus praetorio with Tigellinus, taking advantage of a rumour that Nero was going to fly to Egypt, persuaded the troops to proclaim Galba. Nero was immediately deserted. He escaped from the palace at night with a few freedmen, and made his wav to a house about four miles from Rome, which belonged to Phaon, one of his freedmen, where he passed the night and part of the following day in a state of agonising terror. His hiding-place being known, a centurion with some soldiers was sent to seize him. Though a coward, Nero thought a voluntary death better than the indignities which he knew were preparing for him; and, after some irresolution, and with the aid of his secretary Epaphroditus, he gave himself a mortal wound when he heard the trampling of the horses on which his pursuers were mounted. The centurion on entering attempted to stop the flow of blood, but Nero saying, "It is too late. Is this your fidelity?" expired with a horrid stare.
The body of Nero received funeral honours suitable to his rank, and his ashes were placed in the sepulchre of the Domitii by two of his nurses and his concubine Acte, who had won Nero's affections from his wife Octavia at the beginning of his reign. (Tac. Ann. 13.12; Suet. Nero 50.) Suetonius, after his manner, gives a description of Nero's person, which is not very flattering: the "cervix obesa" of Suetonius is a characteristic of Nero's bust. (Lib. of Entertaining Knowledge, Townley Gallery, vol. ii. p. 28.)
In his youth Nero was instructed in all the liberal knowledge of the time except philosophy; and he was turned from the study of the old Roman orators by his master Seneca. Accordingly, he applied himself to poetry, and Suetonius says that his verses were not made for him, as some suppose, for the biographer had seen and examined some of Nero's writing-tablets and small books, in which the writing was in his own hand, with many erasures and cancellings and interlineations. He had also skill in painting and modelling. Though profuse and fond of pomp and splendour, Nero had apparently some taste. The Apollo Belvedere and the Fighting Gladiator, as it is called, by Agasias, were found in the ruins of a villa at Antium, which is conjectured to have belonged to Nero. (See Thiersch, Ueber die Epochen der Bildenden Kunst, &c. p. 312, 2d ed.)
Nero's progress in crime is easily traced, and the lesson is worth reading. Without a good education, and with no talent for his high station, he was placed in a position of danger from the first. He was sensual, and fond of idle display, and then he became greedy of money to satisfy his expenses; he was timid, and by consequence he became cruel when he anticipated danger; and, like other murderers, his first crime, the poisoning of Britannicus, made him capable of another. But, contemptible and cruel as he was, there are many persons who, in the same situation, might run the same guilty career. He was only in his thirty-first year when he died, and he had held the supreme power for thirteen years and eight months. He was the last of the descendants of Julia, the sister of the dictator Caesar.
There were a few writers in the time of Nero who have been preserved-Persius the satirist, Lucan, the author of the Pharsalia, and Seneca, the preceptor of Nero. The jurists, C. Cassius Longinus, after whom the Sabiniani were sometimes called Cassiani, and Nerva, the father of the emperor Nerva, lived under Nero. (Tac. Ann. xiii.xvi.; Suet. Ner.; Dio Cass. lxi.-lxiii. ed. Reimarus. All the authorities for the facts of Nero's life are collected by Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, vol. i.)
[G.L]
1 * The critics take the verses to be ironical. Let the reader judge.
William Smith. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. London. John Murray: printed by Spottiswoode and Co., New-Street Square and Parliament Street. In the article on Soranus, we find: "at this present time (1848)" and this date seems to reflect the dates of works cited. 1873 - probably the printing date.
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs SMSgt Lawrence McCarter SPC Michael Duricko, Ph.D GySgt Thomas Vick MSG Felipe De Leon Brown SGT Denny Espinosa SSG Stephen Rogerson SPC Matthew Lamb LTC (Join to see) LTC Greg Henning Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D. Maj Kim Patterson PO1 William "Chip" Nagel PO2 (Join to see) SSG Franklin Briant SPC Woody Bullard TSgt David L. MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi
(14)
(0)
LTC Stephen F.
Tony Robinson's Romans: Nero (Ancient Rome Documentary) | Timeline
Tony Robinson's Romans series continues as he examines the life of Nero. Use code 'timeline' and enjoy 3 months of History Hit for $3 http://bit.ly/TimelineW...
Tony Robinson's Romans: Nero (Ancient Rome Documentary) | Timeline
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJE9Ov8LczM
Image:
1. silver denarius of late 54 showing Nero and his mother Agrippina with their busts confronted.
2. Etching of Josephus
3. Gold Aureus Nero and Agrippina Junior, 55 A.D. here she has been demoted to being behind emperor Nero
4. Agrippina was put aboard and after the bottom of the ship opened up, she fell into the water. Agrippina swam to shore so Nero sent an assassin to kill her.
Background from {[http://madmonarchs.guusbeltman.nl/madmonarchs/nero/nero_bio.htm]}
Nero Claudius Caesar (37-68) is one of the most notorious Roman Emperors. As a megalomaniac, he was convinced that he was a fantastic ruler, lover, athlete, actor, poet and singer. The Romans, however, soon tired of being locked in theatres, forced to listen to Nero's ceaseless verses and songs.
Nero was born on December 15, 37 as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of Agrippina the Younger (15-59) and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (†40). Nero's grandfather, another Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (†48 BC), had been a savage and heartless man. His animal shows and gladiatorial contests were so bloody that the Emperor Augustus rebuked him. Nero's father, Gnaeus, was even worse. Once, he deliberately rode down a child on the Appian Way just for fun. He also murdered someone for refusing to drink as much as he ordered and another time he gauged out someone's eyes for criticising him. He was generally engaged in drunken, adulterous debauchery and had an incestuous relationship with his sister Domitia Lepida (†54). Nero's mother, the ambitious Agrippina, had had a traumatic childhood; her brothers were either killed or starved to death by order of the suspicious Emperor Tiberius. She had her first sexual experience at age 12 with her only surviving brother, Caligula (12-41). Later, she had an affair with her cousin, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (†39), who married her sister Drusilla (†38).
Agrippina the younger
In 39 AD, Agrippina and her sister Julia Livilla (18-±41) were exiled to the tiny Pontian Islands by their brother, the Emperor Caligula. When Nero was only three years old, his notorious father died of dropsy. Subsequently, Caligula had Agrippina's property confiscated and as a result she and Nero lived in poverty. According to Suetonius, Nero's tutors on the islands were a dancer and a barber.
Agrippina (to the right) was recalled by the next emperor, her clumsy uncle Claudius (10 BC-54 AD), in 41 AD. He was married to Domitia Lepida's daughter Messalina (±20-48). Back in town, Agrippina managed to persuade the rich Passienus Crispus to divorce his wife and marry her. When he died shortly afterwards, Agrippina became a rich widow. In 48, the Empress Messalina was executed after cuckolding her elderly husband in public and the Emperor Claudius vowed never to marry again. Agrippina, however, managed to convince her uncle Claudius to marry her the next year.
As a boy, Nero already joined in the Game of Troy during the shows in the circus. He also enjoyed horse races. In 49 AD Agrippina appointed the stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (±5-65) as Nero's tutor. Nero's aunt, Domitia Lepida, was also involved in Nero's upbringing, until 53 AD, when Agrippina managed to have her sentenced to death on charges of witchcraft. Agrippina also convinced Claudius to adopt Nero as his heir over his own son, Britannicus (41-55)1. Soon afterwards, Agrippina falsely accused the fiancé of Claudius' daughter Octavia (±42-±62) of incest with his sister. Claudius, who deeply loved his daughter, broke off the engagement and then the ex-fiancé committed suicide2. Thus, Agrippina arranged Nero's betrothal to his stepsister. In 53, they were married. Having assured her son the throne, Agrippina had her 64-year-old husband-uncle most likely poisoned with mushrooms in 54 AD3.
Nero was of average height with light blond hair, set in rows of curls. His features were regular, his neck over-thick and his belly prominent. The first five years of young Nero's reign under the tutelage of Seneca and Sextus Afranius Burrus (†62) were quite prosperous, but soon Nero turned to a life of excess, seeking luxury and debauchery. He did not love his wife, Octavia, and took the servant Acte as his mistress. Burrus and Seneca hoped she would wean Nero away from his dominant mother. Soon Agrippina became jealous of Acte's influence over her son. She may even have threatened to resurrect the claim of Claudius' son, Brittannicus. On February 11, 55, Nero's 14-year-old stepbrother was poisoned at dinner. Nero stoically claimed that the boy was merely having an epileptic fit4. Brittannicus was quietly burried the next day.
Agrippina was transferred to a separate residence in 55 AD. She also disappeared from the coinage, which had previously borne both her and Nero's image. Acte's influence, however, soon faded as she was replaced by the love of Nero's life, the notorious, amber-haired Sabina Poppaea (±30-65). Nero also took a male favourite, Doryphorus, because he looked like his mother. He may have been introduced to a taste for boy-favourites by Seneca, whose inclinations lay in the same direction5. It was said that Nero had Doryphorus poisoned in 62 AD for opposing his union with Poppaea.
Kiefer and Zachs propose the hypothesis that the immoral Agrippina had an incestuous relationship with her son6. It could explain Agrippina's fury, when Nero took a mistress. Young NeroTacitus wrote: "But Agrippina complained with womanly jealousy and rage that she had a freedwoman for a rival, a maid for a daughter-in-law, and so forth. She could not wait for her son's repentance or his satiety; the more scandalous her accusations, the hotter was his passion, till at last he gave way completely to his love and, throwing off allegiance to his mother, put himself in the charge of Seneca." Poppaea is supposed to have called Nero "a mother's boy". Suetonius remarked that Nero chose a prostitute to be his mistress "because she resembled his mother". Since Poppaea was older than Nero, she could have been a substitute for the mother he now hated. In 59, Nero wanted to kill his mother and send her on a prepared ship which would collapse at sea, but Agrippina managed to swim ashore. Later Nero had her killed anyway and, to justify the matricide, Seneca wrote some prose accusing her of conspiracy. On his 22th birthday in December, Nero celebrated his maturity by shaving off his beard for the first time.
With his mother out of the way, Nero, like Caligula, began his trips in disguise to the seedy parts of the city, beating up passers-by. When in 62 Burrus died and Seneca retired, the ruthless playboy Gaius Ofonius Tigellinus (†68), one of Agrippina's ex-lovers, became the new Praetorian Prefect. He shared in Nero's debaucheries. Soon Nero banished his gentle wife Octavia to the isle Pandateria7. There her wrists were cut in pretence of suicide. After Poppaea's divorce8, Nero married Poppaea in 62 AD.
NeroAccording to Tacitus, Poppaea had great beauty and sophistication, but no morals. On January 21, 63, Poppaea gave birth to a daughter, Claudia, who survived only four months. When Poppaea was expecting another child in 65, Nero, in a rage, kicked her in the belly. She died afterwards and her beautiful body was embalmed. Nero's remorse and grief were intense, until his eye glanced upon a young man, Sporus, who much resembled Sabina Poppaea in looks. Nero had him castrated and went through a marriage ceremony with him. He dressed Sporus in fine clothes normally worn by an Empress and gave him the nickname "Sabina". He took him in his own litter through Rome, kissing him amorously now and then. Nero married another former slave, Pythagoras, and had a public simulation of the bridal night. It was said that he acted as husband to Sporus and as wife to Phytagoras. Nero also had an homosexual affection for the actor Paris. He declared Paris a freeborn and asked to be instructed in the art of acting. In 67, however, Paris was put to death, because his acting ability surpassed Nero's. Nero had also fallen in love with beautiful and wealthy Statilia Messalina. He had her fourth husband put to death and made her his third wife in 66 AD.
By then, Nero had become a megalomaniac. Treason trials were resumed and taxes were raised, while wealthy men had their estates confiscated. Nero's love for the theatre and of chariot racing became obsessive. He cherished his voice and would lie down with lead weights on this chest to strengthen his diaphragm. The Romans waried of being locked in theatres, forced to listen to Nero's ceaseless verses or songs. He held literary festivals in 60 and 65 AD and at them he recited part of his epic "Troica" about the Trojan War. He liked to sing his own compositions while accompanying himself musically. In his private circus and theatre, he started performing as a charioteer and actor. He also used to patronise young talents, but later became aggressively jealous of their success.
NeroThe great fire of Rome in July 64 added to Nero's growing unpopularity. Unproven rumours9 spread that he had started the fire himself to clear space for his palace. According to Tacitus, Nero chose to blame the small Christian community for the fire and had many of them burned alive. This persecution of Christians has made Nero notorious, but, to his contemporaries, his harassment of a tiny Jewish sect would have seemed insignificant. After the fire, Nero enthusiastically started planning the rebuilding of the destroyed parts of Rome with his megalomanical Golden House as its crowning feature. It was a complex of palaces and pavilions in a landscape with an artificial lake and a gigantic bronze statue of Nero. The palace was revolutionary in concept and design. In it the combination of rubble with cement was used for the first time, creating vaulted domes. Nero was interested in science and inventions in general. Once he proudly dismantled and reassembled an hydraulic organ.
It is difficult to determine to what extent Nero was mentally unbalanced. Although there were aspects of his life that seem psychopathic in their nature, his love for Poppaea and the nightmares he suffered after murdering his mother, suggest that he was not a psychopath. He may have been a schizophrenic. His behaviour may partly have been hereditary, but it was probably intensified by the irregularities in the decisive years of his childhood. He had no father figure to look up to and his mother practically smothered him, which may have resulted in a mother-complex. The absolute power corrupted him even further. His growing insecurity led him to liquidate rivals, whether real or imagined. Insulated from public opinion by flattery, Nero lived increasingly in a world of illusion.
A conspiracy to murder Nero during the Circensian Games in 65 AD was betrayed and as a result 13 people were exiled and 19 died, among them Seneca. The following year, Nero travelled to Greece in order to compete in the major Greek festivals at Olympia and Delphi. He bribed the judges and, as usual, the audience was forbidden to leave their seats while he was performing. Naturally, he carried off all the prizes10. In January 68 he made a spectacular return to his capital.
In the spring revolts started in the over-taxed provinces. Nero's removal was demanded. The senate declared him to be a public enemy and condemned him to be flogged to death. Tigellinus was seriously ill at the time and Nero lost his nerve. He did not realise that he still commanded wide popular support among the common people. He wanted to flee on a ship, but his guards refused to help him. Around midnight he found himself abandoned even by the palace attendants. When the soldiers came to arrest him on June 9, Nero stabbed himself in the neck. His private secretary then finished Nero's clumsy suicide attempt. Suetonius writes that Nero uttered the words: "What an artist dies with me!" 11. The faithful Acte had him buried in the family tomb of the Domitii in the Pincian Hills. His third wife, Statilia Messalina, outlived Nero12. His male lover Sporus fled from Rome and committed suicide the following year.
Copyright © 2002, 2007 by J.N.W. Bos. All rights reserved.
Footnotes
1 Brittannicus and Octavia were children of Messalina, whose scandalous sex life made people question Claudius' paternity.
2 He was lucius Junius Silanus and, like Nero, he was a great-great-grandson of the Emperor Augustus.
3 In later years, Nero used to get laughs by referring to mushrooms as "food of the gods".
4 Tacitus mentions the story that Nero had sexual intercourse with Brittannicus before poisoning him, because he was a handsome boy.
5 It was quite common for a young Roman to have sexual relations with a handsome male slave until his marriage.
6 Zacks mentions "stains on his clothes" as proof of intercource with his mother in a litter.
7 Octavia had refused to consent to a divorce.
8 Poppaea was married to Otho (32 BC-69 AD), who became Emperor for some months in 69 AD.
9 Nero was in Antium, when the fire began.
10 Nero was even granted the prize for the Olympic chariot-race, although he fell out of his chariot.
11 "Qualis artifex pereo!"
12 In 69 the Emperor Otho, Poppaea's former husband, intended to become Statilia Messalina's sixth husband, but he was deposed before he could marry her.
Bibliography
Blond, A.: Blond's Roman Emperors (A Scandalous History of the Roman Emperors), Quartet Books, 1994
Grant, M.: The Roman emperors (A biographical guide to the rulers of Imperial Rome: 31 BC - AD 476), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996
Green,V.: The madness of Kings (Personal trauma and the fate of nations), Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd, 1994
Kiefer, O.: Sexual life in Ancient Rome, Constable London, 1994
Bunson, M.: Encyclopedia of the Roman empire, FactsOnFile, 1994
Scarre, Ch.: Chronicle of the Roman Emperors (The reign-by-reign record of the rulers of Imperial Rome), Thames and Hudson, 1995
Johnson, D.M. & Turner, R.T.: The bedside book of bastards, Barnes & Noble, 1994
Regan, R.: (The Guinness Book of) Royal Blunders, Guinness, 1995
Zacks, R.: History laid bare (Love, sex, and perversity from the ancient Etruscans to Warren G. Harding), Harper Collins, 1994
Axelrod, A. & Philips, CH.: Dictators & tyrants"
FYI SFC (Join to see)1stsgt Glenn Brackin1SG Steven ImermanSSG Robert Mark OdomSSG Jeff FurgersonSSG Jeffrey LeakePO2 Frederick DunnSSG Chad HenningSPC Chris HallgrimsonMSG Glen MillerSSG Robert RicciLTC David BrownMAJ Rene De La RosaSSG Paul HeadleeCWO3 Randy WestonSgt (Join to see)CPL Douglas ChryslerSPC Michael TerrellSSG Jimmy CernichSSG Robert Pratt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJE9Ov8LczM
Image:
1. silver denarius of late 54 showing Nero and his mother Agrippina with their busts confronted.
2. Etching of Josephus
3. Gold Aureus Nero and Agrippina Junior, 55 A.D. here she has been demoted to being behind emperor Nero
4. Agrippina was put aboard and after the bottom of the ship opened up, she fell into the water. Agrippina swam to shore so Nero sent an assassin to kill her.
Background from {[http://madmonarchs.guusbeltman.nl/madmonarchs/nero/nero_bio.htm]}
Nero Claudius Caesar (37-68) is one of the most notorious Roman Emperors. As a megalomaniac, he was convinced that he was a fantastic ruler, lover, athlete, actor, poet and singer. The Romans, however, soon tired of being locked in theatres, forced to listen to Nero's ceaseless verses and songs.
Nero was born on December 15, 37 as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of Agrippina the Younger (15-59) and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (†40). Nero's grandfather, another Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (†48 BC), had been a savage and heartless man. His animal shows and gladiatorial contests were so bloody that the Emperor Augustus rebuked him. Nero's father, Gnaeus, was even worse. Once, he deliberately rode down a child on the Appian Way just for fun. He also murdered someone for refusing to drink as much as he ordered and another time he gauged out someone's eyes for criticising him. He was generally engaged in drunken, adulterous debauchery and had an incestuous relationship with his sister Domitia Lepida (†54). Nero's mother, the ambitious Agrippina, had had a traumatic childhood; her brothers were either killed or starved to death by order of the suspicious Emperor Tiberius. She had her first sexual experience at age 12 with her only surviving brother, Caligula (12-41). Later, she had an affair with her cousin, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (†39), who married her sister Drusilla (†38).
Agrippina the younger
In 39 AD, Agrippina and her sister Julia Livilla (18-±41) were exiled to the tiny Pontian Islands by their brother, the Emperor Caligula. When Nero was only three years old, his notorious father died of dropsy. Subsequently, Caligula had Agrippina's property confiscated and as a result she and Nero lived in poverty. According to Suetonius, Nero's tutors on the islands were a dancer and a barber.
Agrippina (to the right) was recalled by the next emperor, her clumsy uncle Claudius (10 BC-54 AD), in 41 AD. He was married to Domitia Lepida's daughter Messalina (±20-48). Back in town, Agrippina managed to persuade the rich Passienus Crispus to divorce his wife and marry her. When he died shortly afterwards, Agrippina became a rich widow. In 48, the Empress Messalina was executed after cuckolding her elderly husband in public and the Emperor Claudius vowed never to marry again. Agrippina, however, managed to convince her uncle Claudius to marry her the next year.
As a boy, Nero already joined in the Game of Troy during the shows in the circus. He also enjoyed horse races. In 49 AD Agrippina appointed the stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (±5-65) as Nero's tutor. Nero's aunt, Domitia Lepida, was also involved in Nero's upbringing, until 53 AD, when Agrippina managed to have her sentenced to death on charges of witchcraft. Agrippina also convinced Claudius to adopt Nero as his heir over his own son, Britannicus (41-55)1. Soon afterwards, Agrippina falsely accused the fiancé of Claudius' daughter Octavia (±42-±62) of incest with his sister. Claudius, who deeply loved his daughter, broke off the engagement and then the ex-fiancé committed suicide2. Thus, Agrippina arranged Nero's betrothal to his stepsister. In 53, they were married. Having assured her son the throne, Agrippina had her 64-year-old husband-uncle most likely poisoned with mushrooms in 54 AD3.
Nero was of average height with light blond hair, set in rows of curls. His features were regular, his neck over-thick and his belly prominent. The first five years of young Nero's reign under the tutelage of Seneca and Sextus Afranius Burrus (†62) were quite prosperous, but soon Nero turned to a life of excess, seeking luxury and debauchery. He did not love his wife, Octavia, and took the servant Acte as his mistress. Burrus and Seneca hoped she would wean Nero away from his dominant mother. Soon Agrippina became jealous of Acte's influence over her son. She may even have threatened to resurrect the claim of Claudius' son, Brittannicus. On February 11, 55, Nero's 14-year-old stepbrother was poisoned at dinner. Nero stoically claimed that the boy was merely having an epileptic fit4. Brittannicus was quietly burried the next day.
Agrippina was transferred to a separate residence in 55 AD. She also disappeared from the coinage, which had previously borne both her and Nero's image. Acte's influence, however, soon faded as she was replaced by the love of Nero's life, the notorious, amber-haired Sabina Poppaea (±30-65). Nero also took a male favourite, Doryphorus, because he looked like his mother. He may have been introduced to a taste for boy-favourites by Seneca, whose inclinations lay in the same direction5. It was said that Nero had Doryphorus poisoned in 62 AD for opposing his union with Poppaea.
Kiefer and Zachs propose the hypothesis that the immoral Agrippina had an incestuous relationship with her son6. It could explain Agrippina's fury, when Nero took a mistress. Young NeroTacitus wrote: "But Agrippina complained with womanly jealousy and rage that she had a freedwoman for a rival, a maid for a daughter-in-law, and so forth. She could not wait for her son's repentance or his satiety; the more scandalous her accusations, the hotter was his passion, till at last he gave way completely to his love and, throwing off allegiance to his mother, put himself in the charge of Seneca." Poppaea is supposed to have called Nero "a mother's boy". Suetonius remarked that Nero chose a prostitute to be his mistress "because she resembled his mother". Since Poppaea was older than Nero, she could have been a substitute for the mother he now hated. In 59, Nero wanted to kill his mother and send her on a prepared ship which would collapse at sea, but Agrippina managed to swim ashore. Later Nero had her killed anyway and, to justify the matricide, Seneca wrote some prose accusing her of conspiracy. On his 22th birthday in December, Nero celebrated his maturity by shaving off his beard for the first time.
With his mother out of the way, Nero, like Caligula, began his trips in disguise to the seedy parts of the city, beating up passers-by. When in 62 Burrus died and Seneca retired, the ruthless playboy Gaius Ofonius Tigellinus (†68), one of Agrippina's ex-lovers, became the new Praetorian Prefect. He shared in Nero's debaucheries. Soon Nero banished his gentle wife Octavia to the isle Pandateria7. There her wrists were cut in pretence of suicide. After Poppaea's divorce8, Nero married Poppaea in 62 AD.
NeroAccording to Tacitus, Poppaea had great beauty and sophistication, but no morals. On January 21, 63, Poppaea gave birth to a daughter, Claudia, who survived only four months. When Poppaea was expecting another child in 65, Nero, in a rage, kicked her in the belly. She died afterwards and her beautiful body was embalmed. Nero's remorse and grief were intense, until his eye glanced upon a young man, Sporus, who much resembled Sabina Poppaea in looks. Nero had him castrated and went through a marriage ceremony with him. He dressed Sporus in fine clothes normally worn by an Empress and gave him the nickname "Sabina". He took him in his own litter through Rome, kissing him amorously now and then. Nero married another former slave, Pythagoras, and had a public simulation of the bridal night. It was said that he acted as husband to Sporus and as wife to Phytagoras. Nero also had an homosexual affection for the actor Paris. He declared Paris a freeborn and asked to be instructed in the art of acting. In 67, however, Paris was put to death, because his acting ability surpassed Nero's. Nero had also fallen in love with beautiful and wealthy Statilia Messalina. He had her fourth husband put to death and made her his third wife in 66 AD.
By then, Nero had become a megalomaniac. Treason trials were resumed and taxes were raised, while wealthy men had their estates confiscated. Nero's love for the theatre and of chariot racing became obsessive. He cherished his voice and would lie down with lead weights on this chest to strengthen his diaphragm. The Romans waried of being locked in theatres, forced to listen to Nero's ceaseless verses or songs. He held literary festivals in 60 and 65 AD and at them he recited part of his epic "Troica" about the Trojan War. He liked to sing his own compositions while accompanying himself musically. In his private circus and theatre, he started performing as a charioteer and actor. He also used to patronise young talents, but later became aggressively jealous of their success.
NeroThe great fire of Rome in July 64 added to Nero's growing unpopularity. Unproven rumours9 spread that he had started the fire himself to clear space for his palace. According to Tacitus, Nero chose to blame the small Christian community for the fire and had many of them burned alive. This persecution of Christians has made Nero notorious, but, to his contemporaries, his harassment of a tiny Jewish sect would have seemed insignificant. After the fire, Nero enthusiastically started planning the rebuilding of the destroyed parts of Rome with his megalomanical Golden House as its crowning feature. It was a complex of palaces and pavilions in a landscape with an artificial lake and a gigantic bronze statue of Nero. The palace was revolutionary in concept and design. In it the combination of rubble with cement was used for the first time, creating vaulted domes. Nero was interested in science and inventions in general. Once he proudly dismantled and reassembled an hydraulic organ.
It is difficult to determine to what extent Nero was mentally unbalanced. Although there were aspects of his life that seem psychopathic in their nature, his love for Poppaea and the nightmares he suffered after murdering his mother, suggest that he was not a psychopath. He may have been a schizophrenic. His behaviour may partly have been hereditary, but it was probably intensified by the irregularities in the decisive years of his childhood. He had no father figure to look up to and his mother practically smothered him, which may have resulted in a mother-complex. The absolute power corrupted him even further. His growing insecurity led him to liquidate rivals, whether real or imagined. Insulated from public opinion by flattery, Nero lived increasingly in a world of illusion.
A conspiracy to murder Nero during the Circensian Games in 65 AD was betrayed and as a result 13 people were exiled and 19 died, among them Seneca. The following year, Nero travelled to Greece in order to compete in the major Greek festivals at Olympia and Delphi. He bribed the judges and, as usual, the audience was forbidden to leave their seats while he was performing. Naturally, he carried off all the prizes10. In January 68 he made a spectacular return to his capital.
In the spring revolts started in the over-taxed provinces. Nero's removal was demanded. The senate declared him to be a public enemy and condemned him to be flogged to death. Tigellinus was seriously ill at the time and Nero lost his nerve. He did not realise that he still commanded wide popular support among the common people. He wanted to flee on a ship, but his guards refused to help him. Around midnight he found himself abandoned even by the palace attendants. When the soldiers came to arrest him on June 9, Nero stabbed himself in the neck. His private secretary then finished Nero's clumsy suicide attempt. Suetonius writes that Nero uttered the words: "What an artist dies with me!" 11. The faithful Acte had him buried in the family tomb of the Domitii in the Pincian Hills. His third wife, Statilia Messalina, outlived Nero12. His male lover Sporus fled from Rome and committed suicide the following year.
Copyright © 2002, 2007 by J.N.W. Bos. All rights reserved.
Footnotes
1 Brittannicus and Octavia were children of Messalina, whose scandalous sex life made people question Claudius' paternity.
2 He was lucius Junius Silanus and, like Nero, he was a great-great-grandson of the Emperor Augustus.
3 In later years, Nero used to get laughs by referring to mushrooms as "food of the gods".
4 Tacitus mentions the story that Nero had sexual intercourse with Brittannicus before poisoning him, because he was a handsome boy.
5 It was quite common for a young Roman to have sexual relations with a handsome male slave until his marriage.
6 Zacks mentions "stains on his clothes" as proof of intercource with his mother in a litter.
7 Octavia had refused to consent to a divorce.
8 Poppaea was married to Otho (32 BC-69 AD), who became Emperor for some months in 69 AD.
9 Nero was in Antium, when the fire began.
10 Nero was even granted the prize for the Olympic chariot-race, although he fell out of his chariot.
11 "Qualis artifex pereo!"
12 In 69 the Emperor Otho, Poppaea's former husband, intended to become Statilia Messalina's sixth husband, but he was deposed before he could marry her.
Bibliography
Blond, A.: Blond's Roman Emperors (A Scandalous History of the Roman Emperors), Quartet Books, 1994
Grant, M.: The Roman emperors (A biographical guide to the rulers of Imperial Rome: 31 BC - AD 476), Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996
Green,V.: The madness of Kings (Personal trauma and the fate of nations), Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd, 1994
Kiefer, O.: Sexual life in Ancient Rome, Constable London, 1994
Bunson, M.: Encyclopedia of the Roman empire, FactsOnFile, 1994
Scarre, Ch.: Chronicle of the Roman Emperors (The reign-by-reign record of the rulers of Imperial Rome), Thames and Hudson, 1995
Johnson, D.M. & Turner, R.T.: The bedside book of bastards, Barnes & Noble, 1994
Regan, R.: (The Guinness Book of) Royal Blunders, Guinness, 1995
Zacks, R.: History laid bare (Love, sex, and perversity from the ancient Etruscans to Warren G. Harding), Harper Collins, 1994
Axelrod, A. & Philips, CH.: Dictators & tyrants"
FYI SFC (Join to see)1stsgt Glenn Brackin1SG Steven ImermanSSG Robert Mark OdomSSG Jeff FurgersonSSG Jeffrey LeakePO2 Frederick DunnSSG Chad HenningSPC Chris HallgrimsonMSG Glen MillerSSG Robert RicciLTC David BrownMAJ Rene De La RosaSSG Paul HeadleeCWO3 Randy WestonSgt (Join to see)CPL Douglas ChryslerSPC Michael TerrellSSG Jimmy CernichSSG Robert Pratt
(6)
(0)
8
8
0
6
6
0
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google