Nero (37 - 68) was the fifth Roman emperor, ruling from 54 CE until his death, and the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Ancient historians describe a reign that began under the guidance of capable advisers and deteriorated into extravagance, judicial murder and the persecution of Christians after the Great Fire of Rome in 64. [1]
Origins and accession
He was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus on 15 December 37 CE at Antium, on the coast south of Rome. His mother, Agrippina the Younger, was a great-granddaughter of Augustus and the sister of the emperor Caligula. In 49 she married her uncle, the emperor Claudius, who adopted her son the following year; the boy took the name Nero Claudius Caesar and was advanced ahead of Claudius's own son Britannicus. [1]
Claudius died in 54 CE, probably poisoned, and Nero became emperor at about sixteen. The early years of his rule, known to later writers as the quinquennium Neronis, were guided by the philosopher Seneca the Younger and the praetorian prefect Burrus, and were marked by relatively moderate administration and restraint in the treatment of the Senate. [2]
Reign
Nero gradually removed those who constrained him. Britannicus died at a palace banquet in 55, and in 59 Nero ordered the killing of his mother Agrippina. After the death of Burrus in 62 and Seneca's withdrawal from public life, his rule grew harsher: treason trials returned, his wife Octavia was set aside and put to death, and opponents in the senatorial class were executed or compelled to suicide. [1]
Foreign affairs were managed largely by capable subordinates. Corbulo conducted campaigns in Armenia that produced a durable settlement with Parthia, and the revolt of Boudica in Britain was suppressed in 60-61. In Judaea, mounting grievances erupted in the First Jewish-Roman War from 66, which continued after Nero's death. [2]
The Great Fire and persecution
In July 64 a fire destroyed much of Rome, burning for days and devastating a majority of the city's districts. Nero organised relief and rebuilding, but rumours circulated that he had instigated the fire to clear ground; he devoted a large area of the ruins to an enormous new palace complex, the Domus Aurea. According to Tacitus, Nero directed blame at the Christians of the city, who were subjected to public executions of extreme cruelty, the first recorded state persecution of the sect. [3]
A conspiracy led by Gaius Calpurnius Piso was uncovered in 65 and answered with a wave of executions and forced suicides, among them that of Seneca. Heavy spending on building and on games strained the treasury, and Nero's public appearances as a singer, lyre-player and charioteer, together with an extended artistic tour of Greece, alienated the traditional elite. [1]
Fall and legacy
In 68 the governor Vindex revolted in Gaul and Galba, the governor of Hispania, was proclaimed emperor by his troops. Abandoned by the praetorian guard and declared a public enemy by the Senate, Nero fled Rome and died by suicide on 9 June 68, ending the Julio-Claudian line and opening the civil wars of the Year of the Four Emperors. [1]
His posthumous reputation rests chiefly on the hostile accounts of Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio, all written by or for the senatorial class he antagonised. Modern historians treat their more lurid claims with caution while accepting the central record of dynastic murder, fiscal strain and persecution, and note that Nero retained popularity among sections of the Roman populace and the eastern provinces after his death. [4]
