The first Pseudo-Nero appeared in the autumn of 68 AD or the early winter of 69 AD in the Roman province of Achaia, today modern Greece. Nero had visited Greece (66–67 AD) to participate in its Panhellenic Games, and this may account for some of the support the impostor received. Tacitus attributed the whole phenomenon to the gullibility and restive nature of the Greeks, whom he seems to have disliked. The impostor, according to Tacitus, was either a slave from Pontus, or a freedman from Italy. The historian does not reveal much about the early career of the impostor, except to say that the Pseudo-Nero gathered around him a group of army deserters and then set out to sea.