2 – His Depravity Was Legendary
Much is made of Caligula having sex with his sister, but it is suggested that Nero had intimate relations with his mother, Agrippina. According to historian Tacitus, Agrippina ‘offered herself’ to Nero. Tacitus cited Clavius and Fabius Rusticus as his sources, but their writings have been lost. Suetonius also claims Nero wanted sexual relations with his mother. Given Nero’s depravity, it would hardly be a surprise, but there doesn’t appear to be enough evidence to confirm this rumor outright.
Nero did, however, indulge in a wide array of inappropriate behavior. When he drifted down the River Tiber to Ostia, there were individual booths set up along the way. Each one was filled with the tools of debauchery with matrons acting as innkeepers as every person beckoned him to the shore. Nero also had a penchant for seducing married women and young boys.
His activities with a slave called Sporus were odd even by Nero’s standards. He castrated the unfortunate boy and tried to make a woman of him. Then he ‘married’ Sporus with all the traditional ceremony and outfits including a bridal veil for his ‘bride.’ The slave was taken to Nero’s house and treated as his wife.
Nero also supposedly defiled every part of his body. His complete lust for all things weird meant he was forced to come up with inventive ways to fulfill his desires. One of his more twisted games was to tie men and women to stakes. Nero would cover himself with the skin of a wild animal and be let loose from a cage to attack the private parts of the helpless victims. Once he had satiated his lust, his freedman Doryphorus murdered those Nero had defiled.
If all of the above wasn’t enough, there was the small matter of Nero’s legendary wild orgies. Accounts of these ‘events’ make a terrifying reading. As the drunken guests of the emperor peered out of the palace windows, they would be greeted with the sight of up to a dozen men covered with tar which had been tied to stakes. These Christians would be set on fire, and as they screamed, a host of half-naked dancing girls would appear. This would just be the beginning of a night of unrestrained indulgence.