Nero

Roman emperor (r. 54-68 c.e.)

• Born: December 15, 37 AD
• Birthplace: Antium, Latium (now Anzio, Italy)
• Died: June 9, 68 AD
• Place of death: Rome (now in Italy)

As the fifth emperor of Rome, Nero continued the reign of terror of the Julio-Claudians while pursuing his own artistic career.

Early Life

Born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Nero (NEER-oh) was a member of the Imperial Julio-Claudian family of Augustus through both parental lines. His formidable mother, Agrippina the Younger, was the granddaughter of Augustus’s daughter Julia III. His dissolute father, Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, was the grandson of Augustus’s sister Octavia and Marc Antony. When Nero was two years old, his mother was banished by her mad brother, the emperor Caligula, for treason. In the following year, Nero’s father died, and his estate was seized by Caligula. The orphan was reared in the house of his paternal aunt Domitia Lepida until the accession of Claudius I in 41 c.e., when his mother was recalled from exile and his paternal inheritance was restored. The boy’s early education was uncertain. He may have been cared for by a male dancer and a barber in his aunt’s house. Later, he was given Greek tutors, including Anicetus and Beryllus, who remained advisers into his adulthood.

Nero’s prospects improved significantly in 48 c.e., when the emperor Claudius married his niece Agrippina and her son came under the tutelage of the famous statesman and Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (known as Seneca the Younger), who supervised the boy’s education. Empress Agrippina schemed tenaciously to improve Nero’s place in the line of succession. In 49 c.e. she persuaded her husband to betroth Nero to his daughter Octavia. On February 25, 50, Agrippina’s son was legally adopted by the emperor and renamed Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus even though Claudius had a natural son and heir, Britannicus. On March 5, 51, Nero took the toga virilis and was declared an adult, six months before he was legally entitled to do so; in the absence of the emperor, he served as prefect of the city of Rome. Two years later, Nero married Octavia and gave his first public speeches. On October 12, 54, the emperor Claudius died, perhaps poisoned by Agrippina, and the sixteen-year-old Nero was declared emperor the next day.

The physical description of Nero by his ancient biographer Suetonius is supplemented by images on contemporary coins. He was of average height, with blue eyes and light blond hair that he often set in curls and grew long in the back. He had a round, prominent chin, a squat neck, a protruding stomach, and spindly legs.

Life’s Work

Nero’s reign was marked by lavish public displays, a dissolute personal life, and the suspicious deaths of rivals. Nero endeared himself to the Roman populace by increasing the number of days on which public games were held. In 57 c.e. he built a new wooden amphitheater for gladiatorial contests and wild-beast shows. The emperor preferred extravagant and exotic artificial displays such as mock naval battles, controlled conflagrations during dramatic performances, and reenactments of mythological events. On such public occasions, the emperor often displayed great generosity to both the performers and the audience.

Nero enjoyed an uninhibited personal life. Rumors of an incestuous relationship with his mother cannot be proven. Nero certainly supplemented his marriage to Octavia with a long-term relationship with a Greek freedwoman named Acte. In 55 c.e. Britannicus became the emperor’s first victim, poisoned at a banquet. About the same time, Agrippina fell into disfavor. By 59 this rift had developed to such an extent that Nero ordered a bizarre assassination attempt on a barge in the Bay of Naples. When this failed, a troop of Nero’s henchmen killed Agrippina in her villa.

Throughout his reign, Nero relied heavily on others to govern the empire. At first, this dependence seemed the result of youthful inexperience; in later years, however, Nero spent much of his time composing poetry and songs that he performed publicly, much to the distaste of his subjects. While Agrippina’s influence was short-lived, Nero benefited from the moderating counsel of Seneca and of Sextus Afranius Burrus, the commander of his Praetorian Guard until 62 c.e., when Seneca retired and Burrus died. Burrus was succeeded by Ofonius Tigellinus, whose heavyhanded tactics resulted in terror and bloodbaths.

The emperor had a cadre of epicurean friends on whom he could rely for help, especially in his debauchery. Marcus Salvius Otho, the future emperor, helped arrange Nero’s rendezvous with Acte, and another friend, Petronius Arbiter, the author of the Satyricon (c. 60 c.e.; The Satyricon, 1694), is often called the emperor’s “arbiter of elegance.”

Several competent military commanders served Nero. Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo struggled with the difficult Armenian problem on the eastern border of the Empire. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus put down a dangerous revolt in the province of Britain in 60 c.e. Titus Flavius Vespasianus, the future emperor, suppressed the Jewish rebellion in Judaea in 67 c.e.

For the most part, Nero left the day-to-day management of the Empire to reliable freeborn Greeks such as Phaon, his finance minister, and Doryphorus, who managed the emperor’s correspondence. Nero’s reign was marked by few political initiatives. Rome’s territory expanded modestly along the coast of the Black Sea. Some exploratory commercial expeditions were made to the Baltic and up the Nile River into the present Sudan. The Armenian problem was solved, at least temporarily, with the accession to the throne of the nominal Roman vassal Tiridates.

Agrippina’s death was a turning point in Nero’s reign. The emperor then pursued his artistic ambitions more openly. At the end of 59 c.e., the twenty-two-year-old emperor organized religious games called Iuvenalia to commemorate the first shaving of his beard. While such a celebration was an ancient Roman tradition, the emperor’s competition as both singer and actor was a scandalous innovation. In the next year, Nero showed his fondness for Greek culture by founding the Neronian games, modeled on the Pythian games at Delphi, with competitions in the arts (music, poetry, and oratory), in athletics, and in chariot racing. While the emperor did not compete in these games, he was awarded the prize for oratory.

By 62 c.e. Nero had fallen into a passionate relationship with a woman named Poppaea Sabina, about whom little is known except that she was the former mistress of Otho. In order to marry the pregnant Poppaea, Nero had his childless wife Octavia summarily executed on a trumped-up charge of adultery. On January 21, 63 c.e., in Antium, the emperor’s beloved birthplace, Poppaea gave birth to Nero’s only child, a daughter named Claudia, who died the following May.

The events surrounding the Great Fire of Rome in 64 c.e. are among the most controversial of Nero’s reign. When the fire broke out on July 19, the emperor was in Antium. He quickly returned to the capital, where he opened public buildings and his gardens on the Vatican hill to refugees and arranged for emergency food supplies. Despite these relief efforts, Nero was accused of starting the fire, partly because his agents cheaply bought up the large tracts of burned property, where his infamous Golden House was later built, and partly because of the rumor that Nero callously chose the backdrop of the burning city to perform his own composition about the fall of Troy. Nero’s government responded to these rumors by charging the Christian population in Rome with arson. Saint Peter and Saint Paul are traditionally considered victims of the subsequent persecution.

It is unlikely that Nero’s agents actually started the fire. It is uncertain whether he actually fiddled while Rome burned. However, Nero did take advantage of the fire to change the face of Rome. He rebuilt public buildings, such as the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum, and erected an opulent private residence spanning at least 125 acres (50 hectares) in the heart of Rome. This vast complex of buildings and gardens was filled with magnificent wall paintings, mechanical wonders such as a dining hall with a revolving ceiling, and great artwork, such as the Laocoon group now in the Vatican Museum. The Golden House became so closely associated with Nero’s extravagance that his successors, the Flavian emperors, used part of the site to build the Colosseum.

In 65 c.e. Nero faced a major conspiracy by Roman aristocrats, who planned to make Gaius Calpurnius Piso emperor. Among those implicated in the Pisonian conspiracy were Seneca, Seneca’s poet nephew Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus), and Nero’s old friend Petronius. In another conspiracy, led by Annius Vinicianus in 66, Nero’s general Corbulo was forced to take his own life. These incidents left a permanent scar of Imperial suspicion and popular discontent on Nero’s reign.

Shortly after the second celebration of the quincentennial Neronian games in 65 c.e., the empress Poppaea died. While acknowledging Nero’s devotion to his wife, even the ancient historian Tacitus accepted the popular story that Nero had kicked the pregnant Poppaea after coming home late from the circus. Nero eventually married Statilia Messallina, who survived him but with whom he had no children.

In his final years, Nero turned increasingly to public display, and especially to personal performance, as a distraction from his political and personal troubles. Nero’s reception for Tiridates, king of Armenia, in 66 c.e. was spectacular. Later in the same year, the emperor left for a tour of Greece, where he competed at a variety of festivals, including the Olympic Games. The emperor reportedly won 1,808 prizes, not only in artistic competitions but also in chariot racing. He also earned the enthusiastic gratitude of the Greeks by declaring the Greek province of Achaea free of Roman taxation. While in Greece, Nero also began work on an ambitious project to dig a canal across the isthmus of Corinth. Abandoned by Nero’s successors, this canal was not finished until 1893.

Growing discontent led Nero to cut short his stay in the East and return to Rome in early 68 c.e., where he celebrated an extravagant triumph for his recent athletic victories. By March, Nero faced open revolt from Gaius Julius Vindex, one of his governors in Gaul (modern France). In April, Servius Sulpicius Galba, governor in Spain, followed Vindex in revolt. Although Vindex’s army was defeated in May by troops loyal to the emperor at Vesontio (Besançon, France), Nero lost the support of his personal Praetorian Guard in Rome and prepared for escape to Egypt. Intercepted in headlong midnight flight from the city, he committed suicide with the help of an aide. His successor was Galba.

Significance

In his final hours, according to Suetonius, Nero muttered, “What an artist perishes with me.” While he cherished his reputation as an artist, his work survives only in fragments. Instead, Nero’s name became synonymous with incompetent government at best and despotic cruelty, debauchery, and wickedness at worst. His persecution of the Christians transformed his legend from that of a bad emperor to an antichrist whose second coming was anticipated with horror.

Nero’s reign marked the end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty founded by Augustus. While the Roman Empire slipped into temporary political chaos after Nero’s death, the Empire was soon restabilized under new Imperial dynasties that preserved the Pax Romana, built on autocratic Julio-Claudian foundations, into the middle of the following century.

Bibliography

Bishop, John. Nero: The Man and the Legend. New York: A. S. Barnes, 1964. This scholarly biography of Nero is mostly based on the ancient historian Tacitus but offers a controversial interpretation of the role of Christians in the burning of Rome in 64. Maps and illustrations.

Grant, Michael. Nero. New York: Dorset Press, 1989. A balanced and accessible biography with useful maps, illustrations, chronological lists, genealogical tables, notes, and bibliography.

Griffin, Miriam T. Nero: The End of a Dynasty. New York: Routledge, 2000. A scholarly examination of the reign of Nero is followed by a detailed explanation of the reasons for his fall. Includes illustrations, genealogical chart, maps, plans, and bibliography.

Henderson, Bernard W. The Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero. London: Methuen, 1903. Despite its publication date, Henderson’s biography remains a major reference with extensive notes, maps, illustrations, genealogical table, and bibliography.

Weigall, Arthur. Nero: The Singing Emperor of Rome. Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City, 1930. This biography by a writer of popular history offers an uncritical retelling of the ancient sources. Includes notes and genealogical chart.