The Bluffer’s Guide to Early Roman Emperors

For someone like Nero, a man who needed to be liked, a conspiracy must have been devastating. The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back came soon afterwards when, in a fit of rage, Nero kicked his pregnant wife Poppaea to death. Now, it seems that Popppaea really was the love of Nero’s life and her loss, especially loss at his own hand, practically destroyed him. Some suggest he went mad, as usual we’re not sure, but he certainly completely lost interest in Roman affairs and withdrew into the Golden House, making it the setting of the sort of debauchery that the sources just love to elaborate upon. One of the most infamous of these was his decision to “marry” a male slave named Pythagoras, supposedly because he resembled Poppaea. Now, knowing Nero’s love of spectacle and shock, this sounds to me like a novel performance for his party guests, neatly mocking conventions as well as mocking the rites of mystery cults.

Heavy taxation in the provinces was causing unrest, particularly in Judaea, and the army were fed up with putting down rebellions. In Gaul, the governor Vidnex rebelled against him, joined by Galba, the future emperor and a governor in what is now Spain. Nero retained controlled for a while, but support for Galba was strong and eventually the emperor fled Rome. He made several failed attempts at suicide and assisted suicide before news reached him that the senate planned to beat him to death and as the sound of the horsemen nearing him, quoting epic poetry and crying “what an artist dies with me!”, he killed himself.

Of course, that’s the story that survives, who actually reported these dying words and actions is a little sketchy. His death brought civil war. The Julio-Claudian line was no more and Rome could no longer look for an emperor from one dynasty. But the story of Nero does not end there. Though Tacitus insists that only the foolish would mourn such a tyrant’s death, other sources report a widespread belief that Nero was still alive, resulting in several “false Neros” making claims for the throne. If Nero was so hated, why would people support someone claiming to be him? The belief was so widespread that it even appears in the Book of Revelations: many scholars interpret the “Great Beast” as Nero’s return, suggesting that even Christians believed that Nero would soon come back and bring with him Judgement Day. Similar stories appear in the Sibylline Oracles and the Ascension of Isaiah. It’s possible that he only became popular as people looked back on the spectacles he put on or compared his reign with the period of unrest, but… well… these beliefs turn up pretty quickly, the first pseudo-Nero turns up in AD69, and lasted a long time, Revelations was probably written in the mid 90s. It just goes to show how biased our sources can be.