Nero Would Have to Add “Murdered My Own Mom” To His Tinder Bio
The Roman Emperor Nero (37 – 68 AD) was one of history’s oddest rulers. He became emperor as a teenager in 54 AD, and was dominated by his mother, who reportedly controlled him with incest. As contemporaries described it: “whenever he rode in a litter with his mother, he had incestuous relations with her, which were betrayed by stains in his clothing“. That sheds light on how Nero ended up so depraved. When he tried to assert his independence as he grew older, Nero’s mother refused to give up her power, and continued to meddle in government. So he decided to murder her, and resorted to elaborate means to make it look accidental.
Nero’s mom survived each attempted “accidental death”. Exasperated, he finally gave up on subtlety and simply had his henchmen club her to death. With his mother out of the way, Nero finally started to live life his way. He fancied himself an avant garde artiste, and liked to shock public sensibilities. Public displays of deviant intimate practices were the easiest way to do that. So Nero reportedly “defiled every single part of his body“, and when he tired of run of the mill perversions, “he at last devised a kind of game, in which, covered with the skin of some wild animal, he was let loose from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women, who were bound to stakes, and when he had sated his mad lust, was dispatched by his freedman Doryphorus.”