views updated May 23 2018


37 c.e.–c. 68 c.e.

Roman emperor

A Troubled Emperor in a Troubled Time.

Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in December 37 c.e. to Agrippina the Younger and G. Domitius Ahenobarbus. His mother was the daughter of Germanicus Julius Caesar, grandson of the emperor Augustus and brother of the emperor Claudius. His father was a cruel and much vilified former soldier who swindled and killed for fun. His family was banished by the emperor Caligula in 39 c.e., and his father died soon afterward. When Claudius became emperor in 41 c.e., he restored Agrippina's civil rights and her estates, which had been confiscated by Caligula. Seneca the Elder, an historian and orator, tutored the young Nero. His uncle Claudius adopted him in 50 c.e., making him heir to the throne. Agrippina murdered Claudius in 54 c.e., and Nero became emperor. His dominating mother held the empire's reins at first, but gradually the impressionable Nero fell under the influence of his advisers, and she was removed from the emperor's palace in 55 c.e. Nero murdered his mother in 59 c.e. Never very stable, he allowed his advisers to run the government while he slid into debauchery, excess, and madness. He was married three times, and had numerous affairs with both men and women, and, according to some rumors, even his mother.

Public Performances.

Nero adored spectacle and the arts, and spent a lot of time in Greece, the cradle of culture for the Romans, where he regularly competed in games. He once staged a triumph for himself, but instead of displaying the spoils of conquered nations, he was preceded by a display of the trophies and proclamations of his victories in singing and lyre playing in Greek. He fancied himself as a gifted author and performer on the stage, and often compelled the citizenry to listen to him declaim and sing excerpts from drama for hours in locked theaters. Citizens were said to have faked serious illness in order to be carried out of the theater. In 60 c.e. he established the Neronia, contests modeled on Greek games in which noblemen vied in declamation and music. He underwent grueling rituals to strengthen himself for performing in public, such as lying with heavy weights on his chest, purges and extreme diets, and drinking a concoction made of dried boar's feces to repair sore muscles. He surrounded himself with flatterers who encouraged his delusions. The famous fire in 64 c.e., in which Nero was famed to have "fiddled while Rome burned," serves as an example of the extent of his megalomania and the urban turmoil in Rome during his reign. He was so serious about himself as one of the world's most talented performers that the writer Suetonius relays that his dying words were "I die as such a great artist."


Matthew Bunson, A Dictionary of the Roman Empire (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

Miriam Griffin, Nero: The End of a Dynasty (New Haven, Conn.; London: Yale University Press, 1984).

Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars. Trans. Robert Graves (East Rutherford, N.J.: Penguin, 2003).

Tacitus, The Annals. Trans. Michael Grant (New York: Viking Press, 1956).


views updated May 23 2018

Nero (ad 37–68), Roman emperor, whose patronage of the arts extended to appearing himself upon the stage. Infamous for his cruelty, he ordered the murder of his mother Agrippina in 59 and wantonly executed leading Romans. His reign witnessed a fire which destroyed half of Rome in 64; in Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars, it is said that after watching the fire, Nero dressed himself in his tragedian's costume and sang The Fall of Ilium. This story gave rise to the expression to fiddle while Rome burns (although Nero's instrument would have been the lyre).

A wave of uprisings in ad 68 led to his flight from Rome and his eventual suicide.


views updated May 17 2018

Nero (37–68) Roman Emperor (54–68). One of the most notorious of rulers, he was responsible for the murders of his half-brother, his mother, and his first wife. Rome burned (64), according to rumour, at Nero's instigation. He blamed the Christians and began their persecution. Faced with widespread rebellion, Nero committed suicide.