He was born into a wealthy and politically prominent family. He took the ancestral name of Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, claiming his linage from both Tiberius Claudius Nero (his step-father and uncle) and Gaius Octavius Augustus (his great grandfather). He is thought to have had both Paul and Peter killed in Rome. He then marched his massive army across the Pyrenees and Alps into central Italy in what would be remembered as one of the most ...read more, The three Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome took place over nearly a century, beginning in 264 B.C. Nero then ordered the troops to do the job directly. He had killed his mother, first wife and, by some accounts, his second. Owen Jarus - Live Science Contributor Sotter notes that Nero still had a considerable deal of popular support and one of these emperors, Otho, even renamed himself “Nero Otho” in his honor. Upon Claudius’ sudden death in 54—classical sources suggest Agrippina fed him poisoned mushrooms—the 17-year-old Nero ascended the throne. He started work on a new palace called the Domus Aurea (golden palace), which was said, at the entranceway, to have included a 120-foot-long (37 meters) column that contained a statue of him. “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace,” wrote Tacitus (translation from Jürgen Malitz’s "Nero"). The empress Octavia was exiled and executed, and in 62 Nero and Poppaea were married. The general persecution subsided as the elder apostle sat dictating his what he remembered about his Master.

All Rights Reserved. Nero (AD 37-68) was the Roman emperor to whom Paul appealed upon return to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey. Famously known for the apocryphal story that he fiddled while Rome burned in a great fire, Nero has become one of the most infamous men who ever lived.

[Related: History's Most Notorious and Elusive Bad Guys]. In his first five years as emperor, Nero gained a reputation for political generosity, promoting power-sharing with the Senate and ending closed-door political trials, though he generally pursued his own passions and left the ruling up to three key advisers—the Stoic philosopher Seneca, the prefect Burrus and ultimately Agrippina. Taking advantage of the unrest in the east, civil war broke out in Rome. His father, a former Roman consul, died when he was about 3 years old, and his mother was banished by the Emperor Caligula, leaving him in the care of an aunt. His father, a former Roman consul, died when he was about 3 years old, and his mother was banished by the Emperor Caligula, leaving him in the care of an aunt. “At Camulodunum and Londinium the results of the Boudican revolt may be compared, on a smaller scale, with those of the volcanic eruptions that smothered Pompeii and Herculaneum,” writes researchers Richard Hingley and Christina Unwin in their book, "Boudica: Iron Age Warrior Queen" (Cambridge University Press, 2005). But his greatest ...read more, In 219 B.C., Hannibal of Carthage led an attack on Saguntum, an independent city allied with Rome, which sparked the outbreak of the Second Punic War. Stay up to date on the coronavirus outbreak by signing up to our newsletter today. In Britain, in A.D. 60, the Iceni Queen Boudicca (also spelled Boudica or Boudicea) rose in rebellion after she was flogged and her daughters raped by Roman soldiers. In the first two years of Nero’s reign, his coins depicted him side by side with his mother, Agrippina. The senators said that they believed his life was at risk and congratulated him on killing his own mom. "The poet is trying to tell you [that] Poppaea loves her husband and what it implies is this story about the kick in the belly cannot be true," said Paul Schubert, a professor at the University of Geneva and the lead researcher who worked on the text, in an interview with LiveScience at the time. ), or Marcus Antonius, was an ally of Julius Caesar and the main rival of his successor Octavian (later Augustus).

He was the fifth and last emperor of the dynasty that had begun with Augustus in 27 BC. His name at birth was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus.

Agrippina the Younger was the daughter of Agrippina the Elder and the great-granddaughter of Emperor Augustus. The apostle met with many believers in around the house to which he was confined[4]. His father, Gnaeus Domitius, who died when Nero was three, was extremely violent in his own right -- described by his contemporaries as “a despicable character”. It tells of the deification of his dead wife Poppaea Sabina, concluding with her watching over Nero from the heavens. Soon the Praetorian Guard declared allegiance to Galba, and the Senate followed suit, declaring Nero an enemy of the people. He had a passion for music and the arts, an interest that culminated in a public performance he gave in Rome in A.D. 65. She “managed for him all the business of the empire … she received embassies and sent letter to various communities, governors and kings …” wrote Cassius Dio who lived A.D. 155-235 (translation from the book "Nero Caesar Augustus: Emperor of Rome" by David Shotter, Pearson, 2008). “Nero took votive offerings from temples in Rome and Italy as well as hundreds of cult statues from temples in Greece and Asia, after the fire of Rome in A.D. 64,” writes Richard Duncan-Jones in his book "Money and Government in the Roman Empire" (Cambridge University Press, 1995), who also notes that Nero reduced the size of the coins Rome minted. Shotter notes that Nero was so happy with the results of his trip to Greece that he rewarded the Greeks their “freedom,” essentially tax exemption. Growing up in Rome, he probably knew of the new "sect" among the Jews that had migrated from Jerusalem, Judea, about the time of his birth[1]. Fifty years later, the historian Suetonius reported Nero’s final lament: “What an artist dies in me!”. By the final years of his Nero’s rule, the Roman Empire was under great strain. He shrewdly combined military ...read more, The third of Rome’s emperors, Caligula (formally known as Gaius) achieved feats of waste and carnage during his four-year reign (A.D. 37-41) unmatched even by his infamous nephew Nero. Her husband, King Prasutagus, had made a deal with Claudius that would see him rule as a client-king. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/nero. Did you know?

Paul had been kept in prison for two years by his predecessor Antonius Felix from Claudius' administration. His name at birth was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus.After the murder of Caligula in January A.D. 41, and the ascension of Emperor Claudius shortly afterward, mother and son were reunited. Nero’s mother, Agrippina the Younger, had married Claudius after arranging the death of her second husband and was the driving force behind her son’s adoption. A marble bust of Nero, Roman emperor from A.D. 54 to 68.

Nero would go on to marry the already pregnant Poppaea Sabina in that same year, and she would give birth to their daughter (who lived only about three months) in January, A.D. 63.

It was enough that Nero followed his mother's example in killing off the competition, but political trials would wait for a while.

His last words were said to be “what an artist dies in me!” Shotter notes that his long-time mistress Acte was by his side and “ensured Nero a decent burial in the family tomb of the Domitii on the Pincian Hill in Rome.”. This first attempt failed, with his mother swimming to shore. As the first Roman emperor (though he never claimed the title for himself), Augustus led Rome’s transformation from republic to empire during the tumultuous years following the assassination of his great-uncle and adoptive father Julius Caesar. However, the newly deciphered poem from Egypt casts doubt on this, showing Poppaea in the afterlife wanting to stay with Nero. Many people in the centuries to follow considered Nero to be the "model" for the coming "Antichrist." Upon his death in A.D. 59, the officials appointed by Nero ignored it, seizing Iceni land.

She turned against him, promoting her stepson Britannicus as the true heir to the throne and protesting Nero’s affair with his friend’s wife Poppaea Sabina. Following his mother’s death, Nero gave himself fully to his longstanding artistic and aesthetic passions. Ancient writers say Nero killed her with a kick to the belly. Some believe Nero’s fate was inevitable. Access hundreds of hours of historical video, commercial free, with HISTORY Vault. Nero and his mother appear to have had a falling out within about two years of his becoming emperor. Scholars were surprised to discover that the text, which proclaims Nero a man “equal to the gods,” dates to about two centuries after Nero’s death, suggesting that some individuals in the Roman Empire held a favorable view of him long after his death.

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Both Peter[7] and Paul[8] write of such conditions developing. Nero was born with name Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in 37 AD, but renamed as Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus because his mother, Agrippina the Younger, married Emperor Claudius in 49 AD, who adopted Nero in 50 AD. However, Paul insisted on being tried by the emperor himself[3]. Her face stopped appearing on Roman coins after A.D. 55, and she appears to have lost power in favor of Nero’s top advisers, Seneca and Burrus, the commander of the Praetorian Guard who advised him on military affairs. “In one dangerous race, he fell out of his chariot, but the Hellenic Judges in charge of the games nevertheless granted him the wreath of victory: he rewarded these traditionally unpaid officials with one million sesterces.”. In that year, he divorced her then accused her of adultery and killed her. Nero is famed for watching while Rome burned, then using the devastated area for his own luxurious palace, and then blaming the conflagration on the Christians, whom he persecuted. But, when it came time to warn of a return of persecution, Nero had to be on his mind. Recently, a newly translated poem has been published, and it depicts Nero in a positive light. Nero died young, killing himself at the age of 30, in AD 68. He once deliberately ran over a young boy with his chariot as he drove through a local village. Though not mentioned by name in the Bible, secular records (and perhaps the book of the Revelation) identify him as a ruthless man who began persecuting Christians. Nero, not trusting his Praetorian Guard to carry out the killing, ordered naval troops to sink a boat that she would be sailing on. She arranged for Nero to wed Claudius’ daughter Octavia in 53, further sidelining the emperor’s son Britannicus. Whatever responsibility he actually bore for the disaster, Nero deflected attention by blaming members of the fledgling Christian religion for the fire.