NERO

NERO (37-68), Roman emperor from A.D. 54 to 68, born at Antium, son of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus and of Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus; after the murder of Claudius, instigated by Agrippina, who 4 years previously had become the emperor's wife, Nero seized the throne, excluding Britannicus, the rightful heir; during the first 5 years of his reign his old tutors, Seneca and Burrus, were his advisers in a wise and temperate policy, but gradually his innate tendency to vice broke through all restraint, and hurried him into a course of profligacy and crime; Britannicus was put to death, his mother and wife, Octavia, were subsequent victims, and in 64 numbers of Christians suffered death, with every refinement of torture, on a trumped-up charge of having caused the great burning of Rome, suspicion of which rested on Nero himself; a year later Seneca and the poet Lucan were executed as conspirators, and, having kicked to death his wife Poppæa, then far advanced in pregnancy, he offered his hand to Octavia, daughter of Claudius, and because she declined his suit ordered her death; these and many other similar crimes brought on inevitable rebellion; Spain and Gaul declared in favour of Galba; the Prætorian Guards followed suit; Nero fled from Rome, and sought refuge in suicide.