Fictional evil leaders have been
a mainstay of movies, novels, and tv shows. But when it comes to the deeds of real-life leaders, fiction is often no competition for a fact. For example, during his
reign as leader of the Mongol Hordes, it’s been speculated that Genghis Khan
killed as much as 11% of the world's population. Tamerlane the Great, also
known as Timur, would actually build towers out of skulls. And Qin Shi Huang on
his way to becoming the first unified Chinese Empire destroyed every semblance
of an education system by burning books and burying scholars alive.
Emperor Nero, A leader who,
ancient writers and historians claim, not only started the great fire that destroyed
Rome in A.D. 64, but also fiddled as he watched his city burn to the ground. With
this thought in mind, we’re going to look at why Emperor Nero is the evil
leader in human history. Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus on December
15th, 37 A.D. When he was only 2, his father Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus died
of edema and left a large chunk of his estate to his son, however, the inheritance
was taken from him by Emperor Caligula.
Eventually Nero took the name we
all know and love to hate when he reached the tender age of 13. It was at that
time that he was adopted by his mother, Agrippina The Younger, and great uncle,
the Emperor Claudius, who by that time had succeeded Caligula following his
assassination by his guards. Nero’s mother Agrippina was described as vicious,
violent, and unforgiving. I guess in this case you could say, like mother like
son.
Agrippina even had her second
husband killed. Eventually Nero would take the reigns as Emperor at the age of
17 after his great uncle died unexpectedly. Some historical sources from the
time claim that people saw Nero’s mother feed her husband poisoned mushrooms,
resulting in his sudden death. Despite our perception of Nero today as an evil
and hated ruler, during the years of his reign he in fact did hold a strong
amount of support from the Roman Empire.
He was young, new, and loved
music and the arts, traits the general public admired in their leader. Occasionally
he was even claimed to be “kind”. The Roman Empire’s historian Suetonius wrote “He
let slip no opportunity for acts of generosity and mercy, or even displaying
his affability”. After only 2 years of his reign though, that affability seems
to have disappeared and Nero ordered that his mother be killed. A gradual
falling out between the two had began some time prior, eventually leading Nero
to removing her face from Roman coins.
By that time she had lost the
respect of Nero’s advisors as well. There’s multiple, contradicting, and often fantastical,
reasons for why Nero ordered his mother killed. But the most common and often
agreed upon is that she herself was actually plotting to kill Nero! So Nero
said off with her head! So to speak. Nero actually ordered an accidental
collision of her boat, hoping she may perish with the sinking ships. Fortunately,
or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, she survived the initial attempt.
Finally he ordered assassins to
kill her and make it resemble a suicide. This time she did not survive. Nero
was relieved to find that he was actually congratulated on the death of his
mother. Many high ranking officials surrounding him, along with some of the
general public, suspected his life was in danger from her plans to kill him and
saw it as a fortuitous event. On June 9th, 53 A.D., Nero married Claudia Octavia.
Their marriage was not a pleasant one.
Octavia was described by the
Roman senator and historian Tacitus as an “aristocratic and virtuous wife”,
meaning she had moral standards and wanted to honor her husband. Nero, on the
other hand, was quite different. He was immediately bored and angered by his new
wife’s mindset, as it deviated strongly from what he wanted out of a wife. On
occasion, a rage filled and frustrated Nero would even attempt to strangle
Octavia.
But perhaps the biggest issue for
Nero was that Octavia was unable to bear a child for him. With no child, there
would be no heir to his throne. Eventually Nero began having affairs with different
women, one being a freedwoman named Poppaea Sabina. After she became pregnant
with Nero’s child, Nero decided to divorce his wife for Poppaea . Together Nero
and Poppaea banished Octavia from Nero’s empire. However, Nero did not expect
the backlash that came from his people.
Many Roman citizens very much
liked Octavia and protested severely the banishment of her from the empire. They
carried statues of her through the city and the protests were so large that
Nero briefly considered remarrying her to calm the people. Nero feared that the
only reason the Romans saw him as their leader was his association with Octavia
and her connection to past royal families. So after much deliberation, Nero did
the next best thing to remarrying his estranged wife - he had her killed.
He hoped this would instill some
fear and prove his strong leadership to the people. Octavia was put to death in
a traditional Roman Suicide Ritual on June 8th, 62 A.D. Only 2 years later,
Rome burned. The now infamous incident began on the evening of July 18th, 64
A.D. The fire ignited on the Aventine Hill, one of the seven slopes that Rome
is built on, overlooking the Circus Maximus. The fire burned for nearly 6 days
before it could be somewhat controlled, only to reignite once again and burn
uncontrolled for another 3 days.
Over a total of nearly 9 days,
two thirds of Rome has burned to the ground. Just about 70% of the city was
completely destroyed. Homes, temples, markets, all burned to the ground. Nero,
at the time, was not himself actually in Rome. He was at his villa in Antium
which is about 35 miles away from Rome, though he rushed back immediately upon
hearing the news. Once back in Rome, Nero immediately opened his palace doors
for the now homeless people of Rome and offered shelter and food.
He was quick in his desire to
begin rebuilding the city...and conveniently, a new palace for himself called
the Domus Aurea, which in latin means Golden House. It was a massive palace
complex that would eventually take up nearly one third of Rome. The
construction of the new palace is what lead to many Roman citizens speculating
that Nero had ordered the Great Fire of Rome himself, a devious plan that would
allow him to clear the land to build the palace of his dreams while also
allowing him to spin his public image by being the charitable ruler who opened his
doors to his people when they needed help. Although he got the palace he
wanted, him image was irrevocably tarnished as the rumors spread quickly and
escalated.
It was at this time that Nero’s
decline truly began. The rebuilding costs of Rome were high and forced him to
devalue the imperial currency by 10%. Revolts in the Roman provinces of Judea
and Britain were also escalating. Nero suspected that there were high level conspiracies
originating in the Senate to have him assassinated, which he decided he could
only prevent by having them killed first. With unrest growing in Rome, Nero
took an extended 15 month trip to Greece.
There his passion for art grew
and he gave himself to music, sports, and theatrical performances. When he
finally did return back to Rome in 68 A.D., he found even more unrest in the city.
He had grown more distant from military decisions and completely failed to
respond to an urgent revolt in Gaul as well as growing tensions in Africa and
Spain. Finally at their wits end, the Senate made a bold move and announced
that Nero was an enemy of the people.
Soon, everything Nero had done as
emperor seemed to finally come to a head and his world began closing in on him.
Many people believed it was him that started the Great Fire of Rome and that he
had killed his Mother, his first wife, and now new rumors popped up that he had
killed his second wife too. Nero attempted to flee the city that by now had
completely turned on him. Learning that his arrest and execution were imminent,
Nero decided to fall back on his favorite move, killing, this time though he took
his own life on June 9th, 68 A.D.
He was 30 years old. Immediately
following Nero’s death, the Roman Empire went through one of its most tumultuous
periods. It was pure and total chaos with multiple Emperors taking control and
getting killed before they could even do anything. It became known as the “Year
of Four Emperors”. Tacitus described it as “ a period rich in disasters. Even
in peace, full of horrors”. If someone kills their own mother, their first wife,
possibly their second and pregnant wife, and maybe even burned down an entire
city they were ruling, you may look at them in a bad light too.
It is true that Nero did some
pretty bad things. But as time has moved far away from these events and
historians have continued to study the rise and fall of the Roman empire, and even
more specifically the rise and fall of Nero, many have found that he may have
been more misunderstood than downright evil. And maybe, just maybe, history
should have painted him in a different light. Let's first start with the famous
image of Nero fiddling as Rome burned.
First of all, the year was 64 A.D
and the viol family of instruments which includes fiddles, was not even
invented until sometime around the 11th century. So there is zero chance that
he could have been fiddling at the time. Second, as we talked about earlier,
Nero wasn't even in Rome when it began burning. He was 35 miles away in his
villa.
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