10 things you should know about Nero
Ancient History at B6FC
The rule of Nero
Nero was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68 AD, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and acceded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death.
The Roman historian Suetonius is one of our main sources on the early Roman Emperors. This is what he had to say on Nero:
“Nero loved performing. While he was singing no one was allowed to leave the theatre even for the most urgent reasons. And so it is said that some women gave birth to children there, while many who were worn out with listening and applauding, secretly leaped from the wall, s ince the gates at the entrance w ere closed, or feigned death and were carried out as if for burial.
When it was night he would he would put on a cap or a wig and go to the bars or wander about the streets playing pranks - he used to beat men as they came home from dinner, stabbing any who resisted him and throwing them into the sewers. He would even break into shops and rob them.
Besides abusing freeborn boys and seducing married women, he debauched the vestal virgin Rubria. He castrated the boy Sporus and actually tried to make a woman of him; and he married him with all the usual ceremonies, including a bridal veil, took him to his house attended by a great throng, and treated him as his wife.
He even devised a kind of game, in which, covered with the skin of some wild animal, he was let loose from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women, who were bound to stakes.
He built a palace named the Golden House. Its size and splendour will be sufficiently indicated by the following details. There was a pond, like a sea, surrounded with buildings to represent cities. In the house all parts were overlaid with gold and adorned with gems and mother-of-p earl. There were dining-rooms of ivory, whose panels could turn and shower down flowers and were fitted with pipes for sprinkling the guests with perfumes. The main banquet hall was circular and constantly revolved day and night, like the heavens.
Nero poisoned his step brother, Brittanicus (the son of the previous emperor, Claudius). The boy dropped dead at the very first taste, but Nero lied to his guests and declared that he was seized with the falling sickness, to which he was subject, and the next day had him hastily and unceremoniously buried in a pouring rain.
He grew tired of his mother and attempted to have her poisoned. When this failed he planned to have her bedroom ceiling collapse on her as she slept. When she found out about this he had built a collapsible boat in order to drown her when dining at sea. When this also failed he simply had her stabbed to death.
He had 3 wives. His first, Octavia, he tried to strangle but in the end he divorced her. He dearly loved Poppaea, whom he married twelve days after his divorce from Octavia, yet he caused her death by kicking her when she was pregnant and ill, because she had told him off for coming home late from the races. After this he decided to marry Statilia Messalina. However, she was already married so Nero had her husband murdered.
Under the cover of displeasure at the ugliness of the old buildings of Rome and the narrow, crooked streets, he set fire to the city. For six days and seven nights destruction raged, while the people were driven for shelter to monuments and tombs. While Rome burned he sang about the Fall of Troy, in his regular stage costume.
Nero was rumoured to have had captured Christians dipped in oil and set on fire in his garden at night as a source of light.”
Nero was assassinated in 68 BC.
10 things you should know about Nero…