Nero Summary Summer Term Exams

Question 1

Nero Reign dates

Answer 1

(54-68 A.D.)

Question 2

Nero real name

Answer 2

Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus

Question 3

Introduction (Quotes+Descripition+Five)

Answer 3

The first five emperors, the Julio-Claudians, are very different from one another. The last of the dynasty, Nero, is well described by statements such as these: “But above all he was carried away by a craze for popularity and he was jealous of all who in any way stirred the feeling of the mob”; “What an artist the world is losing!” . Above all, he is remembered for crimes against his mother and the Christians, making him a sad falling-off from the levels of Augustus and Tiberius. Few will argue that Nero does not rank as one of the worst emperors of all.

Question 4

Three Sources for Nero’s reign

Answer 4

Tacitus Annales 12-16 (senator and historian writing in early second century AD)
Suetonius Life of Nero (biographer writing in early second century AD)
Dio Cassius Roman History 61-63 (historian writing in early third century AD)

Additional valuable material comes from inscriptions, coinage, papyri and archaeology.

Question 5

Nero’s background (Birthday+Parents)

Answer 5

1. He was born on December 15, 37, at Antium, the son of Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina. Domitius was a member of an ancient noble family; Agrippina was the daughter of the popular Germanicus, who had died in 19, and Agrippina, daughter of Agrippa, Augustus’ closest associate, and Julia, the emperor’s daughter, and thus in direct descent from the first emperor, Augustus.

Question 6

Nero’s birth and the changing of Emperors

Answer 6

2. When the child was born, his uncle Gaius (Caligula) had only recently become emperor. The relationship between mother and uncle was difficult, but the family survived the short reign of the ‘crazy’ emperor, and when he was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard, it happened that Agrippina’s uncle, Claudius, was chosen by the praetorian guard, although there may have been a conspiracy to accomplish this.

Question 7

Claudius Marriage and Tutoring (Death+Marriage)

Answer 7

3. Ahenobarbus had died in 40, so the son was now the responsibility of Agrippina alone. She lived as a private citizen for much of the decade, until the death of Messalina, the emperor’s wife, in 48 provided an opening. Although Roman law forbade marriage between uncle and niece, the senate were persuaded to accept it, and the marriage took place in 49. Soon afterwards the philosopher Seneca was recalled from exile to become the young Domitius’ tutor, a relationship which endured for some dozen years.

Question 8

Seneca (full name plus birth)

Answer 8

born Córdoba, Spain; died 12 April 65 AD

Real name Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Question 9

The Rise of Nero (Lucius new name+Son+Death+Marriage)

Answer 9

4. Nero’s subsequent advance was rapid. He was adopted by Claudius the following year and took the name Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar or Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus; he was preferred to Claudius’ natural son, Britannicus, who was about three years younger; he was engaged to the emperor’s daughter Octavia; and he was, in the eyes of the people, the clear successor to the emperor. In 54, Claudius died, having eaten some poisoned mushrooms, possibly supplied by Agrippina, and the young Nero, not yet seventeen years old, was hailed on October 13 as emperor by the praetorian guard.

Question 10

Quinquennium and influence

Answer 10

5. The first five years of Nero’s rule are customarily called the quinquennium, a period of good government under the influence of three people: his mother, Agrippina, Seneca and Sextus Afranius Burrus, the praetorian prefect. The latter two were allies in their ‘education’ of the emperor. They often combined their influence against Agrippina, who, having made her son emperor, never let him forget the debt he owed his mother, until finally, and fatally, he moved against her.

Question 11

Marriage to Octavia and rejection (private tastes)

Answer 11

6. Nero’s betrothal to Octavia (Claudius’s daughter) was a significant step in his path to the throne, but she was too quiet, too shy, too modest for his taste. He was early attracted to Poppaea Sabina, the wife of Otho, and she continually goaded him to break from Octavia and to show himself an adult by opposing his mother. In his private life, Nero honed the musical and artistic tastes which were his chief interest, but, at this stage, they were kept private, at the instigation of Seneca and Burrus.

Question 12

59AD

Answer 12

7. As the year 59 began, Nero had just celebrated his twenty-first birthday and now felt the need to employ the powers which he possessed as emperor as he wished, without the limits imposed by others. Poppaea’s urgings had their effect, first of all, at the very beginning of the year, with Nero’s murder of his mother in the Bay of Naples.

Question 13

Fall out with the best mother (optima mater) + death

Answer 13

8. Agrippina had tried desperately to retain her influence with her son, but the break between them proved too serious, and Nero undertook various devices to eliminate his mother without seeming guilty. The final choice was a splendid boat which would collapse while she was on board. As this happened, she swam ashore and, when her attendant, having cried out that she was Agrippina, was clubbed to death, Agrippina knew what was going on. She sent Nero a message that she was well; his response was to send a detachment of sailors to finish the job. When she was struck across the head, she bared her womb and said, “Strike here, Anicetus, strike here, for this bore Nero,” and she was brutally murdered.

Question 14

Agrippina born

Answer 14

c.15AD

Question 15

Death of influence and aftermath of Agrippina’s death

Answer 15

9. Nero was petrified with fear when he learned that the deed had been done, yet he remained popular with the plebs of Rome. This murder, however, proved a turning point in his life and principate. It appeared that all shackles were now removed. The influence of Seneca and Burrus began to wane, and when Burrus died in 62, Seneca realized that his powers of persuasion were at an end and soon went into retirement.

Question 16

Deaths and introduction of yes men

Answer 16

10. Britannicus had died as early as 55; now Octavia (62AD) was to follow, and Nero became free to marry Poppaea. It may be that it had been Burrus (62AD) rather than Agrippina who had continually urged that Nero’s position depended in large part upon his marriage to Octavia. Burrus’ successor as commander of the praetorian guard, although now with a colleague, was Ofonius Tigellinus, quite the opposite of Burrus in character and outlook. Tigellinus became Nero’s ‘evil twin’, urging and helping him to perform crimes and indulge his unsavoury pleasures.

Question 17

terror in the streets + Nero’s private artistic indulgence

Answer 17

11. With Seneca and Burrus in charge of administration at home, the first six years of Nero’s principate ran smoothly. He himself devoted his attention to his artistic, literary, and physical bents, with music, poetry, and chariot racing to the fore. But his advisors were able to keep these performances and displays private, with small, select audiences on hand. Yet there was a gradual trend toward public performance, with the establishment of games. Further, he spent many nights roaming the city in disguise, with numerous companions, who terrorized the streets and attacked individuals. Those who dared to defend themselves often faced death afterward, because they had shown disrespect for the emperor.

Question 18

Military and Diplomatic Difficulties - 60AD

Answer 18

12. Abroad, there were continuous military and diplomatic difficulties, first in Britain, then in the East involving Parthia and Armenia, and lastly in Judaea. In the year 60, Boudicca, queen of the Iceni tribe revolted in Britain. Her army destroyed three Roman cities with the utmost savagery, Colchester, London, and St Albans. But Suetonius Paulinus, the Roman commander in the province, met the enemy army at a site still unknown and destroyed the vastly larger British forces.

Question 19

Relinquishing Britain?

Answer 19

13. Nero is said to have considered giving up the province of Britannia because the revenue it produced was far lower than had been anticipated about 12 years earlier, and it cost Rome more to maintain and expand the province than it was able to produce. Yet, in the end, Nero decided that such an action would damage Rome’s prestige enormously and decided to maintain control of it.

Question 20

Parthian Problems in the East

Answer 20

14. The problem in the East was different. Parthia and Rome had long been rivals and enemies for pre-eminence in the vast territory east of Syria and Cappadocia. In the latter fifties, this erupted into a vicious war. Rome suffered some significant losses, until Cn. Domitius Corbulo was appointed governor of Syria and made commander of all military forces. He won the day by diplomacy as much as by force of arms.

Question 21

66AD uprising

Answer 21

15. The year 66 saw the beginning of an uprising in Judaea which was brutal in the extreme. The future emperor Vespasian was appointed to crush the rebels, which he and his son Titus were able to accomplish.

Question 22

Fall of Nero 64AD

Answer 22

16. The year 64 was the most significant of Nero’s principate up to this point. His mother and wife were dead, as was Burrus, and Seneca, unable to maintain his influence over Nero without his colleague’s support, had withdrawn into private life. The abysmal Tigellinus was now the foremost advisor of the still young emperor, a man whose origin was from the lowest levels of society and who can accurately be described as criminal in attitude and action.

Question 23

Nero’s enjoyment

Answer 23

17. Yet Nero must have considered that he was happier than he had ever been in his life. Those who had constrained his enjoyment of his (seemingly) limitless power were gone, he was married to Poppaea, a woman with all advantages save for a bad character, the empire was essentially at peace, and the people of Rome enjoyed a full measure of ‘bread and circuses’. But then occurred one of the greatest disasters that the city of Rome, in its long history, had ever endured.

Question 24

The Great Fire of Rome + regions

Answer 24

he fire began in the southeastern corner of the Circus Maximus, spreading through the shops which clustered there, and raged for the better part of a week. There was brief success in controlling the blaze, but then it burst forth once more, so that many people claimed that the fires were deliberately set. After about a fortnight, the fire burned itself out, having consumed ten of the fourteen Augustan regions into which the city had been divided.

Question 25

Reaction of Plebs after fire and spread of misinformation

Answer 25

19. Nero was in Antium through much of the disaster, but his efforts at relief were substantial. Yet many believed that he had been responsible, so that he could perform his own work comparing the current fate of Rome to the downfall of Troy. All his efforts to assist the city could not remove the suspicion that ‘the emperor had fiddled while Rome burned’. He lost favour even among the plebs, who had been enthusiastic supporters, particularly when his plans for the rebuilding of the city revealed that a very large part of the centre was to become his new home.

Question 26

Finding of the Scapegoats of the Fire

Answer 26

20. As his popularity waned, Nero and Tigellinus realized that individuals were needed who could be charged with the disaster. It happened that there was such a group ready at hand, the Christians, who had made themselves unpopular because of their refusal to worship the emperor, their way of life and their secret meetings. Further, at this time two of their most significant ‘teachers’ were in Rome, Peter and Paul. They were ideal scapegoats, individuals whom most Romans loathed, and who had continually sung of the forthcoming end of the world.

Question 27

Killings of the Christians

Answer 27

21. Their destruction was planned with the utmost precision and cruelty, for the entertainment of the people. The venue was Nero’s circus near the Mons Vaticanus. Christians were exposed to wild animals and were set ablaze, smeared with pitch, to illuminate the night. The executions were so grisly that even the people displayed sympathy for the victims. Separately, Peter was crucified upside down on the Vatican hill and Paul was beheaded along the Via Ostiensis. But Nero’s attempt, and hope, to shift all suspicion of arson to others failed. His popularity even among the lower classes was permanently impaired.

Question 28

A failed conspiracy in 65 AD

Answer 28

1. The year 65 was marked by a conspiracy of a large scale, the purpose of which, naturally, was to eliminate Nero and replace him with a member of the senatorial order. The chosen leader was C. Calpurnius Piso, although there was talk that Seneca was the favourite of many. The conspiracy failed, partly because there were too many people involved in it and some, by action or word, caused suspicion which Tigellinus ruthlessly pursued. Once it was broken, leading members of society behaved miserably and dishonourably, squealing on others and facing their own ends with fear and shame.

Question 29

Tortures of those involved in the conspiracy

Answer 29

26. Only two persons who were tortured or put to death behaved in the fashion of an ‘old Roman’, and these were members of the lower classes. A freedwoman Epicharis, after torture had not succeeded in breaking her, committed suicide by hanging herself before a second day of interrogation. Subrius Flavus, a tribune of the praetorian guard, was the only person, as reported by Tacitus, who bluntly spoke when Nero asked him why he had ignored his oath as a soldier and acted against him. He told Nero that he began to hate him when he became the murderer of his mother and wife, a charioteer, an actor and an arsonist. Among the other deaths were those of Piso and Seneca by suicide.

Question 30

27 year old Nero and growing resentment + outcomes of the fire

Answer 30

27. Nero was now twenty-seven years old. He had been emperor for more than a decade and had overseen or been responsible for three major disasters in the space of little more than one year. The only positive result from any of these was the imposition of strict building laws for the reconstruction of the city, calling for wider streets, a limitation on the height of buildings, and the use of safer building materials. Though Rome became a healthier and more attractive city, resentment remained because Nero had taken for his own use such a large part of the central city and had brought the countryside into the city.

Question 31

A self-indulgent response to the growing resentment

Answer 31

28. Yet Nero’s response to these challenges was to devote ever more attention to his artistic leanings, in ever more public contexts. First there came an extended visit to Naples, the most Greek city of Italy, then a trip to Greece, where he participated in each of the great festivals and won hundreds of contests. Who, after all, would dare vote against the man who held the power of life and death over all?

Question 32

Nero’s senatorial response to the conspiracy

Answer 32

29. Nero’s and Tigellinus’ response to the conspiracy was immediate and long-lasting. The senatorial order was decimated, as one leading member after another was put to death or compelled to commit suicide.

Question 33

66AD’s reign of terror (suicides)

Answer 33

30. The year 66 saw the suicides of perhaps the most distinguished victims of the ‘reign of terror’, Gaius Petronius and Thrasea Paetus. Petronius, long a favourite of Nero because of his aesthetic taste, had been an able public servant before he turned to a life of ease and indolence. He was recognized as the arbiter elegantiae (judge of elegance) of Nero’s circle, and may be the author of the novel, the Satyricon. At his death, he left for Nero a document which itemized many of the latter’s crimes. Thrasea, a staunch Stoic who had been for some years an outspoken opponent of Nero’s policies, committed suicide in the manner of the famous Greek philosopher, Socrates.

Question 34

68AD Revolt

Answer 34

31. In the year 68, revolt began in the provinces, with the uprising of Julius Vindex, a Gallic noble, governor of Gallia Lugdunensis. His purpose was to try to depose Nero and offer Rome the opportunity to choose a new ruler. But he received little support from other governors; indeed, only the elderly Galba in Spain indicated approval. Vindex may have been in communication with Lucius Verginius Rufus, governor of Germania Superior, but when he moved his army in Gaul, a battle ensued between the two forces, perhaps instigated by the army of Germany. Upon Vindex’s defeat and death, Verginius was offered the throne by his troops, which he rejected, stating that such a decision was up to the Senate. By this action he gained enduring fame.

Question 35

End of the artist

Answer 35

32. Nonetheless, the end of Nero’s reign became inevitable. Galba claimed the throne and began his march from Spain. Nero panicked and was rapidly abandoned by his supporters. He finally committed suicide with assistance, on June 9, 68, and his body was tended and buried by three women who had been close to him in his younger days, chief of whom was Acte. His death scene is marked above all by the statement Qualis artifex pereo (What an artist dies in me.) Even at the end he was more concerned with his private life than with the affairs of state.

Question 36

Aftermath of Nero’s death

Answer 36

33. The aftermath of Nero’s death was cataclysmic. In AD 69, Galba was the first of four emperors who revealed what Tacitus called ‘the new secret of empire, that an emperor could be made elsewhere than in Rome’. Civil war ensued, which was only ended by the victory of the fourth claimant, Vespasian, who established the brief dynasty of the Flavians. The dynasty of the Julio-Claudians was at an end.

Question 37

Conclusion about Nero

Answer 37

34. It is not excessive to say that he was one of the worst of Rome’s emperors in the first two centuries and more of the empire. Whatever talents he had, whatever good he may have done, all is overwhelmed by three events, the murder of his mother, the fire at Rome and his savage treatment of the Christians.

Question 38

Domus Aurea

Answer 38

22. The devastation in the centre of the city presented an opportunity for Nero to build a mansion worthy of himself, the vast estate known as the ‘Golden House’, the domus aurea. It consisted of a very extensive residential quarter, with numerous architectural innovations, a lake and a colossal statue of himself. In subsequent years, all were destroyed or transformed. The Golden House was filled in and served as the foundation of Trajan’s baths, the lake disappeared under the Colosseum and the statue’s head was changed to that of a divinity. The entire project was a huge example of Roman building techniques and imagination. Indeed, the architects responsible, Severus and Celer, are the first in Roman history whose names are known.

Question 39

NERO’S COMPETITORS

Answer 39

24. We know essentially nothing about Nero’s competitors in other fields, but in literature there were substantial rivals. Chief among them was Lucan, whose epic on the Caesarian civil war evoked the majesty, in subject and manner, of Vergil. Lucan offended Nero by criticism of the latter’s poetry and was forbidden to recite his own work. Seneca was the other great figure of the literary age, but his specialities of philosophy and rhetoric did not appeal to the emperor.

Question 40

NERO’S VIEW OF HIMSELF

Answer 40

23. In the arts and literature, Nero considered himself a virtuoso in music, acting, chariot racing and literary activity, to the point that he could not tolerate any rivals. In competitions, it was routine that he always won, and those compelled to attend his performances were faced with execution if they did not show appropriate attention and enthusiasm.