5 facts emperor nero

She first poisoned her first husband so she could become the wife of Emperor Claudius, she then subsequently poisoned Claudius in 54 A.

She then quickly had Nero proclaimed emperor by the Praetorian Guard with whom she had an accomplice to easily make this happen. Up until the year 59 A. Nero married his own stepsister, Claudia Octavia , on June 9, 53 A. When Nero started an affair with Poppaea , he divorced his wife and banned her from Rome. He claimed she was barren and he went on to marry Poppaea , who was pregnant with their first child, 12 days after the divorce was completed in 62 A.

When she was pregnant with their second child, Nero apparently flew into a rage while they were quarreling over some trivial things like all married couples do now and then and kicked her so hard in the stomach that she died. Apart from completely losing grip on reality and trying to acquire praise by publicly conducting the strangest performances imaginable, he also lost his sense of right and wrong.

And there was nobody that could stop this, as he was the emperor. This resulted in peculiar performances as an actor, a singer, and even performances in sports and gladiator games. Obviously, Nero was always the winner and often paraded through the streets of Rome with the trophies he had just won in his fake games. Shortly after Nero allegedly killed Poppaea, he remarried a woman named Statilia Messalina , who was apparently a descendant from a successful Roman general and much less of a pubic figure than her two predecessors.

Sporus went on to live with Nero as his wife afterward. He stooped to marry himself to one of that filthy herd, by name Pythagoras, with all the forms of regular wedlock. The bridal veil was put over the emperor; people saw the witnesses of the ceremony, the wedding dower, the couch, and the nuptial torches; everything in a word was plainly visible, which, even when a woman weds darkness hides.

By the second half of the 60s , Nero became increasingly unpopular with the people, the Senate, and the Army because of his peculiar behavior and acts. Nero was unsatisfied with his marriage to Octavia and began an affair with Poppaea Sabina , wife of his friend and future emperor Otho.

Agrippina opposed this affair. Agrippina responded by promoting her stepson Britannicus as the true heir to the throne. Britannicus died in February 55 under dubious circumstances.

He was most probably poisoned by Nero. In 59 AD , Nero ordered the execution of his mother. Nero divorced and banished his first wife Octavia on grounds of infertility and adultery. He later had her executed in June 62 AD. Nero married Sabina in 62 AD. The couple had a daughter who died in infancy. Sabina died in 65 AD reportedly due to Nero kicking her in her belly during her second pregnancy. In 67 AD, Nero ordered the castration of Sporus , a former slave.

In the early years of his reign, when Nero was influenced by above mentioned advisors, he had a reputation of political generosity and power-sharing with the Senate. He curtailed corruption, forbade bloodshed in circus, banned capital punishment, reduced taxes and allowed slaves to bring complains to him against their unjust masters. Nero also encouraged competition in poetry and theatre over gladiator competitions. The rise of brutality and insanity in Nero probably started around the time of his execution of his mother.

He began pursuing a hedonistic lifestyle marked by lavish self-indulgence and tyranny. He competed as an actor, singer, lyre-player, and chariot-racer and apparently he won each of his contests!

The Roman golden age in 5 steps. The sources tell us that his particular passion was for singing, which he took very seriously. Suetonius says that he went everywhere accompanied by a vocal-tutor and that he also suffered from stage-fright before many of his performances. However, his nerves did not stop him from regularly giving performances lasting many hours, during which no one was permitted to leave. In June A. Soon after the disaster, Nero ordered an enormous new palace complex to be built on land cleared by the fire.

It even included a large circular, revolving dining-room with a ceiling from which panels opened to shower dinner guests with gifts. He notes that Nero never wore the same clothes twice; when he went fishing, he used a golden net strung with purple strings; he rarely traveled with a train of fewer than carriages and even his pack-mules had their hooves shod with silver shoes.

Nero is perhaps most well known for his cruelty and brutality. On the public stage, his punishments for those who confessed to being Christian were shockingly violent. Paranoia soon set in and he began a targeted and ruthless massacre of various noble families, whom he believed to be a threat to his life.

Even the children of these families were exiled and then later murdered. But it took three attempted poisonings and an attempted drowning before he eventually had her stabbed to death.

Suetonius tells us that Nero also poisoned his adoptive brother Britannicus, drugged his aunt Domitia Lepida and violently murdered both his wives, Octavia and Poppaea.