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Nero ascended to power in 54 CE, aged just 16. He became emperor with the support of the Praetorian Guard and Senate.
The fire quickly took hold, the flames eventually encompassing the entire city of Rome. The inferno raged for nine days, with only four of the 14 districts of the capital spared. Three others were completely destroyed.
On hearing the news that Rome was burning, the emperor immediately returned to the capital and set about organizing relief measures. Later, however, many believed him responsible for the disaster by ordering the fire started. But why would they point the finger of suspicion at him?
Tacitus writes that to remove suspicion from himself, Nero accused the Christians of starting the Great Fire. He subsequently had many rounded up and executed, brutally murdered by "being thrown to the beasts, crucified, and being burned alive." This last awful method of execution became known as "Nero's Torches."
By age 21 and by all accounts fed up with her meddling and overbearing influence, Nero had his mother murdered.
It's this episode that helped cement Nero's reputation as one of history’s most sadistic and cruelest leaders.
Shortly after the flames had been extinguished, Nero used the land cleared by the fire to build the vast and showy Domus Aurea, or Golden Palace. Seen as a symbol of greed and decadence, the ostentatious complex and its surrounding pleasure gardens included a 98-ft (30-m) -tall statue of himself, the Colossus of Nero.
In the early years of his reign, Nero relied heavily on the advice and guidance offered by his mother, Agrippina (pictured).
Born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus on December 15, 37 CE, Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the fifth emperor of Rome and the last of Rome's first dynasty, the Julio-Claudians.
When Nero was three, his father died. His mother, Agrippina, later remarried, to the emperor Claudius (pictured). Claudius adopted the youngster as his heir, favoring him over his own biological son, Britannicus.
These two individuals, plus the loyalty and support he enjoyed from the Praetorian Guard—an elite unit of the Imperial Army whose main purpose was to protect Roman emperors—meant that Nero's rise to power was swift and unchallenged.
Agrippina, already suspected of poisoning her husband Claudius to facilitate Nero's ascendency to the throne, later began to support Britannicus in a possible attempt to make him emperor. Feeling threatened, Nero had Britannicus secretly poisoned. His relationship with his mother thereafter quickly deteriorated. The power struggle between Agrippina and her son had begun. Pictured is a coin minted in Rome in 54 CE showing busts of Nero and Agrippina.
Distraction from irritating home affairs came by way of a woman famed for her fighting spirit and determination never to give in to the Romans—Boudica. In 60–61 CE, Queen Boudica of the ancient British Iceni tribe led a revolt against Rome's occupying forces. Boudica and the rebels destroyed Colchester, London, and St Albans before being heavily defeated by Roman troops. Vanquishing the warrior queen won Nero the respect of Rome, but it also turned Boudica into a national hero and a symbol of the struggle for justice and independence.
As a 16-year-old, Nero married Claudius' daughter (his stepsister), Claudia Octavia (pictured).
During his eight-year marriage to Octavia, Nero fathered no children, but in 62 CE Poppaea became pregnant. The scheming Poppaea convinced Nero to divorce Octavia. She was promptly exiled and then either executed or forced to take her own life, in June 62 CE. Her banishment and demise caused consternation among the public, who sympathized with the faithful Octavia. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, Poppaea even ordered that Octavia's head be brought to her, partly as proof of her death and partly to gloat over.
Meanwhile back in Rome, Nero's marriage to Octavia was in trouble. Their union had never been a happy one and the emperor had various affairs, including that with Poppaea Sabina (pictured).
On July 19, 64 CE, a fire started close to Circus Maximus, likely in one of the merchant shops on the slope of the Aventine overlooking the great arena.
Furthermore, when the Great Fire broke out, Nero was apparently at his villa at Antium, some 35 miles (56 km) from Rome.
To celebrate the occasion, special coins were minted showing the temple of Janus with closed doors as a symbol of peace and marking the end of the war in Parthia.
The emperor also had built the Arch of Nero to celebrate his Persian victories. The monument was depicted on the back of another coin specially minted to celebrate the collapse of the Parthian Empire.
The settlement saw Tiridates, brother of the Parthian king, crowned King of Armenia by Nero himself, who presided over a lavish ceremony in Rome in 66 CE designed to showcase a vain emperor's pomposity rather than the coronation of a king. This was later termed the Golden Day of Nero's rule.
Against this backdrop of barbarity, Poppaea's days were also numbered. According to the Roman historian Suetonius, Nero's third wife died sometime in 65 CE after the emperor, in a fit of rage and accused by Poppaea of spending too much time at the games, kicked her hard in the abdomen. Claims that Nero poisoned her also circulated.
He also benefitted from tutelage provided by philosopher and statesman Lucius Annaeus Seneca (pictured).
Modern historians have suggested that Poppaea may have actually died due to complications of miscarriage or childbirth. Whatever the reasons, Nero went into deep mourning.
According to a well-known expression, Nero "fiddled while Rome burned." The problem with this account is that in 64 CE the fiddle didn't exist. If Nero played anything, it would probably have been the cithara, a heavy seven-stringed wooden instrument.
The highpoint of Nero's reign was the defeat by Rome of the Parthian Empire, which was centered on what is now Iran. The Parthian War started in 58 CE and, after initial victories and following setbacks, ended in 63 CE when a diplomatic solution was reached between Nero and the Parthian king Vologases I.
In 68 CE and despite suppressing a revolt led by Vindex, the governor of Gaul, supported by Galba, the governor of Spain, the bloated megalomaniac was beginning to lose his grip on authority.
With Galba winning more military support, Nero's days were numbered. He then lost the support of Rome's citizens due to a grain shortage. The writing was on the wall.
Hunted by the army, abandoned by his people, and facing intractable opposition from within the Roman government, Nero was declared an enemy of the state. On June 9, 68 CE, the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty took his own life.
Today, the ruins of Domus Aurea stand as a reminder of Nero's extravagant and self-congratulatory personality. But it should also be noted that his depiction as a mad tyrant was mainly the result of ancient historians biased in the extreme who were eager to represent him in the worst possible light.
Sources: (History) (Smithsonian Magazine) (British Museum)
See also: True stories about ancient Rome they didn't tell you in school
Nero has gone down in history as one of Rome's cruelest and most sadistic emperors. And indeed, he certainly enjoyed a very unsavory reputation as a ruler who brought about the deaths of several prominent Romans, persecuted Christians, emptied the public treasury, and was implicated in the burning of Rome. But was he really the debauched tyrant that many historians have made him out to be? And did he really fiddle while Rome burned?
Click through for a look back at the life and times of one of antiquity's most controversial figures.
Was this emperor Rome's cruelest and most sadistic ruler?
How evil was Nero?
LIFESTYLE History
Nero has gone down in history as one of Rome's cruelest and most sadistic emperors. And indeed, he certainly enjoyed a very unsavory reputation as a ruler who brought about the deaths of several prominent Romans, persecuted Christians, emptied the public treasury, and was implicated in the burning of Rome. But was he really the debauched tyrant that many historians have made him out to be? And did he really fiddle while Rome burned?
Click through for a look back at the life and times of one of antiquity's most controversial figures.