The Emperor Nero: Sometimes Misunderstood, Sometimes a Monster
History has, in recent years, rehabilitated the reputation of this most venal and corrupt Roman Emperor, casting doubt over his most famously unforgivable act – fiddling while Rome burned. In fact, as the story is now told, Nero was right in the thick of it when the great fire of Rome broke out in 64 CE, passing the proverbial bucket and nurturing orphans as they were dragged from the flaming rubble.
The episode did, however, present the Emperor with an opportunity to point the finger at a small but worrisome sect known as the Christians, which began the first great bout of persecution against this then peaceful and innocuous band of believers. It is said that he used burning Christians to light his way at night, which is also probably apocryphal, but it is hard to believe a man could achieve a reputation as heinous as that without there being some fire to go with the smoke.
Nero’s mother was the notoriously vindictive and manipulative Agrippina, who’s own list of crimes against decency is quite long, and with her as a mentor, Nero could hardly have turned out otherwise. It was through her devious machination that Nero was engineered onto the throne, and just to be sure that she never had a chance to use the same guile against him, he had her killed. To quiet any claims to his throne, he had his brother done away with as well.
Then there is the story of his brutal beating to death of his pregnant second wife, or perhaps more accurately, kicking her to death, and afterwards marrying a boy who resembled her. Again, modern historians have tended to soften Nero’s culpability in this regard, but again there is that damned smoke that never seems to be around without a fire.
However, killing his own mother, locking the audience in so that they could not escape his malodorous theater performances and executing a poisoner by having her raped by a giraffe does not a bastard make. What makes him a true bastard was ordering rape on the wife of a dinner guest who was forced to sit and watch. No one can disagree that was the behavior of an out and out bastard.