How long did nero reign

It would be 30 years before Rome had another emperor, Trajan, who would rule as long as Nero had. Start your free trial today. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. He shrewdly combined military The son of a great military leader, he escaped family intrigues to take the throne, but his The Roman politician and general Mark Antony 83—30 B.

His romantic and political Julius Caesar was a renowned general, politician and scholar in ancient Rome who conquered the vast region of Gaul and helped initiate the end of the Roman Republic when he became dictator of the Roman Empire. Despite his brilliant military prowess, his political skills and his Located just east of the Roman Forum, the massive stone amphitheater known as the Colosseum was commissioned around A. Greek philosophy and rhetoric moved fully into Latin for the first time in the speeches, letters and dialogues of Cicero B.

A brilliant lawyer and the first of his family to achieve Roman office, Cicero was one of the Known for his philosophical interests, Marcus Aurelius was one of the most respected emperors in Roman history.

He was born into a wealthy and politically prominent family. Growing up, Marcus Aurelius was a dedicated student, learning Latin and Greek. He ignored his rule in favour of hedonistic and depraved pursuits, almost bankrupted the empire to pay for his palace and persecuted Christians so barbarically that he has been regarded by another, more hateful name, the Antichrist.

While these men wrote long after his death and hardly with an agenda to preserve his reputation — which explains the generally debunked claims of fiddling while Rome burned and having an incestuous relationship with his mother — they recounted tales of such salacious and immoral deeds that they have endured. A handful of historians may attempt to re-evaluate his legacy, but Nero will always be the megalomaniacal, murderous tyrant.

Famous for: being the fifth and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty; supposed incest with his mother; allegedly playing the fiddle while Rome burned; persecuting Christians; general tyranny, depravity and debauching, and a spate of murders — including those of his mother and two wives. Nor did his personal ambition drive him to the throne. It was his mother, Agrippina the Younger , who became the overbearing influence on him, especially as his father had died. A dangerous combination of cunning, intelligence and ruthlessness, she survived exile under her older brother, Caligula , only to come back consumed with the aim of reaching the pinnacle of power.

Shortly after dispatching her second husband with poison, Agrippina seduced and married Emperor Claudius, her uncle. She eliminated rivals and charmed Claudius into adopting the year-old Nero as his heir, at the expense of his own son Britannicus.

Her machinations also saw his daughter Octavia married to Nero in AD All that remained was to wait for Claudius to die, which came conveniently soon afterwards in October AD 54, supposedly helped along by Agrippina and a plate of poisoned mushrooms. Not yet 17, Nero had become emperor with Agrippina by his side, firm in the belief that she could rule through him.

For a while, she may have been right as unusual coins from early in his reign depict a bust of Nero facing his mother, suggesting the two ruled as equals. An unwanted consequence of her tight hold over Nero, though, would be the later claims that mother and son committed incest , with reported sightings of them kissing sensuously in public. Nero preferred the counsel of his more liberally minded tutor, Stoic philosopher Seneca, and the prefect of his Praetorian Guard , Burrus.

Under their guidance, the following five years could actually be described as progressive — a word not often attributed to Nero. He granted the Senate greater independence, tackled corruption, cut taxes, ended secret trials, banned capital punishment and decreed that slaves could bring civil complaints against their masters. In reality, the people had Seneca and Burrus to thank for these policies.

To Nero, his position afforded him nothing more than the freedom to indulge in his true passions — the arts he wanted to be a musician and actor, and bring poetry, theatre and singing to the people and the fulfilment of personal pleasures.

Disguising himself, he spent nights stalking the streets of Rome with friends, drinking, frequenting brothels and brawling. Ignoring Octavia and a marriage that bored him, he fell for a former slave, who he later left for Poppaea Sabina, the wife of a senator. That move proved both her undoing and the beginning of several formative, blood-soaked years for the emperor. The first to die was Britannicus, on the day before he became an adult in AD Although Nero claimed his step-brother succumbed to an epileptic seizure, historical records suggest poison had been added to his glass of wine.

Next to go would be Agrippina herself in AD You can really invent all manner of things just to malign that character. And that is exactly the kind of language and stereotypes we find in the source accounts. Some of the current revisionism can seem tendentious. Drinkwater addresses the even more heinous death of Poppaea. In ancient Rome, pregnancy was a hazardous affair, and could prove fatal even without an assault.

The British Museum seeks to build a less sensationalist account of Nero through the placement and elucidation of objects: statues, busts, coins, inscriptions, graffiti. A portrait emerges of a young, untested leader at the helm of an unwieldy empire that is under enormous stress. The statue, on loan from the Louvre , depicts Nero on the cusp of manhood, his status indicated by what would at the time have been legible symbols: a bulla, an amulet worn like a locket, confirms that he is a freeborn boy who has not yet come of age.

The statue would originally have been displayed on a high plinth, but at the museum it is presented at ground level, so that the viewer is eye to eye with a child.

The lighting design casts a long shadow: an imperial giant looms. By the time Nero became emperor, in 54 A. Material evidence in the exhibition indicates that when Nero ascended the throne he initially garnered the support of the Senate. Nero asserted his legitimacy by inscribing the coins made for his accession with images of an oak wreath, which was traditionally bestowed as an honor by the Senate. In the year after his accession, a gold coin was minted depicting mother and son in parallel.

A few years after his accession, Nero is depicted alone. By 59 A. Agrippina was dead, at the age of forty-three, and though her demise probably did not involve self-sinking vessels at sea, Nero does seem to have been responsible for having her stabbed to death. Although matricide was generally regarded as a terrible crime by the ancient Romans, Opper points out that other inconvenient women of the period also met harsh fates: Julia, the only child of the emperor Augustus, was banished by her father and died in exile.

Alongside official portraits of the Emperor—the busts and statues—the British Museum includes a digitized reproduction of a graffito scratched into a building on the Palatine Hill. The image, which matches depictions of Nero on surviving coinage, shows him bearded and full-faced, with an ample double chin, and a hint of a smile on pursed lips.

Opper takes the portrait to be admiring, rather than satirical, noting that no graffitied slogan suggests otherwise. Nero, he reports, was widely seen by the Roman public as youthful and vigorous.

Suetonius notes that Nero, after becoming emperor, permitted members of the public to watch him exercise, demonstrating a physical prowess that was in marked contrast to Claudius, who had been ill and frail.