History has a lot of extraordinary people, some in a good way and some in a bad way. Not all of the people were good or bad; they all had their positive and negative sides. As all human beings they all had the choice to choose between being good or bad. Some chose to be good and until now they are known for their decision. But there were some who did not want to take the path of goodness. They preferred their pleasure and chose the way of being bad. But they forgot that both ways has the same hardship just in different directions. If we choose to be bad it is as hard as being good; the difference is that the ways of genial are known as hard, whereas people address evil ways as easy ways. In reality if being good is hard because we can not just think about ourselves, but we are supposed to think about others too; being evil is also hard as that we get to do whatever we want and whatever pleases us, but it is immure in the sinus of loneliness which is known as the king of the punishments. It ruins all the pleasure that we get from being bad. History tells us what was the termination of the people who chose to be bad. Adolf Hitler is a good example. He eventually committed suicide.
Roman Emperor Nero, he is known for his boldness and bad life. Here we will not only see that what bad sides he had, but also we will see what was the good sides of his life, what did he do for his country and people.
Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who was then named Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus by his great uncle Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, was born on December 15, 37 C.E. He was the only son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina, the younger sister of Caligula. Historians say that his father, Gnaeus, was known for running down children with his chariot and gouging out people’s eyes. The Emperor Tiberius charged him with treason, adultery and incest. He escaped and then died of a disease called Edema “ Dropsy” in 39 C.E. when Nero was three.
When Nero’s father died the emperor of Rome was Nero’s maternal uncle Caligus. He exiled Agrippina and sent Nero to be raised by Domitia Lepida, Claudius’s third wife. Caligus then died in 41 C.E and Claudius gets to become the new Emperor. His fourth marriage was to Agrippina, despite her being his niece, in order to aid Nero politically. Claudius adopted Nero in 50 C.E, and give him a new name. Nero was older than Claudius's eldest son Britannicus, so he was chosen to be the next heir after Claudius. Historians say that Nero was proclaimed as adult when he was in the age of 14 in 51 C.E. He married his stepsister Claudia Octavia in 53 C.E.
Claudius died in 54 C.E. Some say Agrippina was the one who killed him with poison mushroom. There is not any information about if Nero was accomplice with Agrippina in this conspiracy against Claudius or not. However, Nero used to insult his stepfather Claudius after he died. He even neglected to enclose the place where his body was burned except with a low wall.
Nero became the Emperor after his stepfather’s death at the age of 17. He is known as the youngest emperor in the history of Rome. Nero was strongly influenced by his mother, Agrippina, specially in the first year of his reign. In 54 C.E, Agrippina tried to sit down next to Nero while he met with an Armenian envoy, but Seneca stopped her and prevented a scandalous scene (as it was unimaginable at that time for a woman to be in the same room as men doing official business). Nero's friends also mistrusted Agrippina and told Nero to beware of his mother. She also tried to intervene in Nero’s personal affairs, as he wanted to get together with Claudia Acte as he was getting unsatisfied with his marriage to Octavia. His mother tried to be in Octavia’s side. Then she began pushing for Britannicus, Nero's stepbrother, to become emperor. Even though Britannicus was nearly 14 years old at the time, but was considered a threat to his reign. Agrippina thought Britannicus, Claudius’s real blood, would be seen as the true heir to the throne by the state over Nero. Britannicus died on February 12, 55 C.E unexpectedly. Nero claimed that Britannicus died from an epileptic seizure, but all the historians claim that Nero murdered him.
Later on Nero became more powerful and self-confidant. He started to do everything on his own. His relationship with his mother was already not that good, but his becoming more powerful made it even worse.
He became romantically in love with Poppaea Sabina, the wife of his friend and future emperor Otho. He now wanted to divorce Octavia and marry Poppaea. All that was not possible if Agrippina was alive. Agrippina’s interfering as she did and quarreling about who should be murdered and who should not have became a big problem to Nero. Finally in 59 C.E Nero decided the murder of his mother. In pass of all the things that his mother did to him, specially killing Claudius that led him to power, he wanted to give her an easy death. He tried some plots to kill her but none of the worked. Agrippina would manage to return alive. That made him impatient and he ordered his soldiers to kill her. He claimed that his mother was plotting against him, but it was not an excuse that could make everyone fool. Rome was very appalled. Matricide, the murder of one’s own mother, was among the worst possible crimes. Even though the intention of killing his mother came from the desire of marrying Poppaea which was not possible with Agrippina alive, many historians see this action of Nero unlikely as he did not marry Poppaea till 62 C.E.
Nero had done a lot to Rome in his 14 year reign period. Some good and some bad stuff. He started well. Nero forced a lot on diplomacy and trade. He was the first one who ended secret trials and gave the Senate more independence and the right to confer the title of emperor. He banned capital punishment, reduced taxes and allowed slaves to sue unjust owners. He provided assistance to cities that had suffered disasters, gave aid to the Jews, and established open competitions in poetry, drama and athletics. Nero gave special attention to enhancing life of Rome. He developed theater and poetry in the country as well as athletic competitions in Rome. Some historians even claim him of being a singer. There were also some successful wars during that period.
In 54 C.E, the Roman vassal kingdom of Armenia overthrew their Iberian prince Rhadamistus and he was replaced with the Parthian prince Tiridates. People were concerned if the young emperor would be able to handle this issue. Nero reacted immediately and sent his army to the region under the command of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo. That was a successful move by Nero. The Parthians temporarily relinquished control of Armenia to Rome. But this piece does not last long and full-scale war broke out in 58 C.E. General Corbulo responded immediately and destroyed most of Armenia's military. Armenia was once again under Rome’s control. British Revolt crushed by General Suetonius Paulinus and annexing the Bosporan Kingdom could be count as the victories in Nero’s Reign. First Roman Jewish war was started in that reign too.
According to his nature Rome faced some severe situations because of the young and inexperienced Nero. And it comes out that in deed Rome did suffered a lot. The Great Fire of Rome happened during his reign. The fire lasted for six days and seven nights. Three out of fourteen districts of Rome were destroyed completely, seven more suffered a sever damage, and only four escaped the fire. According to the studies there were a hundred and twenty two houses and four blocks burnt in that fire. Rome had about 1,700 private houses and 470,000 insulae or tenement, a kind of apartment building where most of the urban citizen population of ancient Rome, including the lower and some middle class people lived. According to that less than tenth of the city was burnt in six days.
Cassius Dio claims that Nero was singing “Sack of Ilium” in stage when the Rome was on fire. But according to Tacitus these were all the rumors made by people and Nero was in Antium in that time. Tacitus said that Nero rushed back to Rome from there when he became aware that Rome was on fire.
Nero started to reconstruct Rome after the great fire. To organize a relief effort, he paid from his own funds. He opened his own place to provide shelter funds for those who were left homeless from the fire. He arranged food supplies to prevent starvation over the land. He started a new urban development plan. Houses were reconstructed spaced out. He built the houses in brick and faced them by porticos on wide roads. He also built a new place complex known as “Domus Aurea” which was about 100 to 300 acres or 40.5 to 121.4 hectares wide. To find necessary funds for the reconstruction of Rome, he imposed tribute on provinces of empire.
There are no evidence found on how the fire happened and what caused it. But according to Tacitus most of the population was blaming Nero for causing the fire himself, as soon after the fire he built a very big house for himself, called The Golden House in the middle of the Rome. Nero was not the one who would sit still and do nothing about that, so he immediately accused Christians for starting the fire. Later on some Christians confessed to the crime, but then it was said that the confessed to the crime by the means of torture.
Tacitus said that Nero held Christians responsible for the fire as they were the class that was hated a lot by Rome. Nero punished the Christians to excuse himself from the claim of the fire. Any kind of mockery was done to their deaths. Most of them were covered with the skin of beasts. They were thrown to dogs or nailed to crosses, while some of them were burnt to make light for their nights.
But on the other hand Suetonius and cassius Dio favor Nero as the arsonist with an insane desire to destroy the city as his motive, or to rebuild Rome in a new style according to his own liking. However, accidental fires were common in ancient Rome, as Rome burnt again during Vitellius reign in 69 C.E and then during Titus’s reign in 80 C.E.
With Nero’s mother dead and his tutor retired, emperor was beyond anyone’s control. Rome had become the victim to the obituary desires of a mad tyrant. There could be only one solution to put an end to the disaster.
In 65 C.E, a freed slave named Epicharis asked a dissatisfied officer, who had access to the emperor, to kill him. But in the contrary the officer betrayed her and Epicharis was captured. She killed herself before anyone could get any information about who was she working for. Nero could not get any names from her. It terrified Nero and he started to worry about it. Nero doubled his guards and unleashed terror on Rome. A huge number of people including Seneca were executed or forced to kill themselves.
However, Rome was too tired of Nero. They had already suffered enough. Senate declared Nero as a public enemy. It meant that anyone could kill him without any punishment. Nero fled to the country with his remaining few slaves and killed himself without having any heir on the June 9, 68 C.E.
Before Nero’s death Rome had been in peace for over a century, but when he died civil war broke out in the streets of Rome. The reason for this was that when Nero lost his three-month-old child, he started killing everyone that was eligible to the throne after him, because he wanted a direct descendant of his blood to rule. When Nero died the throne was then open to whoever had the power to attain it. Vitellius became the emperor after Nero.
Nero’s life was influenced by his parents, especially his mother. We can hardly expect a better person than Nero by knowing about his parents. However, Nero did good things to help Rome, but all of them are invisible in the darkness of the bad ways he chose to lead his country. Even though it’s not proved, most of the people think he fired Rome. It seems like that conclusion is mainly because of his nature. He not only made Rome a difficult place to live during his reign, but he also left Rome with the door wide open to civil wars and inequality.
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"Adoption in Rome." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Nov. 2013. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.
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"Nero." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Feb. 2014. Web. 13 Feb. 2014.