Nero

Nĕro, ōnis, m. [a Sabine word, = fortis; cf. Nerio = fortitudo; root nar; Sanscr. naras, man; Gr. ἀνήρ; cf. ἠνορέη],

• a family name in the gens Claudia, whose most famous member was the emperor C. Claudius Nero, Tac. A. lib. 12-16 passim; Suet. Ner. 1 sqq.; Juv. 8, 223; 12, 129 et saep.—
• II Hence,
• • A Nĕrōnēus, a, um, adj., Neronian: mensem quoque Aprilem Neroneum appellavit, Suet. Ner. 55: unda, the warm baths of Nero, Stat. S. 1, 5, 6: certamen, the games in the Grecian manner instituted by Nero, Suet. Vit. 4; so, agon, id. Ner. 12.—
  • B Nĕrōnĭānus, a, um, adj., of Nero, Neronian: Neronianum dictum, Cic. de Or. 2, 61, 248: piscina, perh. laid out after the pattern of the fish-ponds of Nero, near Baiae, Cassiod. Var. 2, 39.—
  • • 2 Nĕrōnĭānus, i, m., a Roman surname: Patrobius Neronianus, Suet. Galb. 20.—
  • C Nĕrōnĭus, a, um, adj., Neronian, Suet. Ner. 12.

Nero, ōnis, m., (nach Suet. Tib. 1, 2 ein sabinisches Wort = fortis ac strenuus), ein Familienname des klaudischen Geschlechts, unter dem am bekanntesten a) C. Claudius Nero, Konsul 207 v. Chr. und als solcher Besieger Hasdrubals bei Sena, Liv. 27, 41 sqq. Suet. Tib. 2, 1. – – b) Tib. Claudius Nero, der fünfte röm. Kaiser (54–68 n. Chr.), Tac. ann. lib. 12–16. Suet. Vit. Ner. 1 sqq. Wegen seiner Grausamkeit berüchtigt, dah. v. Kaiser Domitian appell. calvus Nero, Iuven. 4, 38. Auson. Caesares 1, 17. p. 112, 17 Schenkl. – Dav.: A) Nerōnēus, a, um, neronëisch, des Nero, mensis, Tac. u. Suet.: certamen (= Neronia), Suet.: unda, Stat. – B) Nerōniānus, a, um, neronianisch, des Nero, dictum (des Konsuls N.), Cic. de or. 2, 248: piscina, Cassiod. var. 2, 39, 5. – C) Nerōnia, ōrum, n., die Festspiele des Nero, vom Kaiser Nero sich selbst zu Ehren eingeführt u. alle fünf Jahre mit musikal. Wettkämpfen, Wettrennen usw. gefeiert, Suet. Ner. 12, 3.

Nĕrō, (7) ōnis, m. , Néron [surnom dans la famille Claudia] ; not^t ¶ 1 C. Claudius Néron, vainqueur dʼAsdrubal : Liv. 27, 41 ¶ 2 lʼempereur Néron : Tac. Ann. libr. 12 ; 16 ; Suet. Nero 1 || -nēus a, um, de Néron : Suet. Nero 55 || -nĭānus, a, um, Cic. de Or. 2, 48 || -nĭus, a, um, Neronia, ōrum, n. , jeux institués par Néron en son propre honneur et célébrés tous les cinq ans [cf. Tac. Ann. 14, 20 ] : Suet. Nero 12.

nero, onis. m.
兇惡王之名。

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Nero

was a cognomen of the Claudia Gens, which is said to signify, in the Sabine tongue "fortis ac strenuus." (Sueton. Tib. Nero, 1; and the remarks of Gellius, 13.22.)

Nero

1. Tib. Claudius Nero was one of the four sons of App. Claudius Caecus, censor B. C. 312. Nothing is known of him except that he was the paternal ancestor of the emperor Tib. Claudius Nero Caesar. (Sueton. Ner. 3.)

Nero

2. C. Claudius Nero (Liv. 24.17), in the fourth consulship of Q. Fabius Maximus, and the third of M. Marcellus, B. C. 214, commanded a body of cavalry under the consul Marcellus. He was instructed to attack the rear of Hannibal's army near Nola, but he either lost his way or had not time to come up, and he was not present in the engagement in which the consul defeated Hannibal, for which he was severely rated by Marcellus. He is evidently the C. Claudius Nero who was praetor in the year but one after (Liv. 25.1, 2), and was stationed at Suessula, whence he was summoned by the consuls Q. Fulvius 111. and Appius Claudius (B. C. 212) to assist at the siege of Capua. (Liv. 25.22, 25.5.) Nero was sent in the same year into Spain (Liv. 26.17; Appian, Hispan. 17) with a force to oppose Hasdrubal. He landed at Tarraco (Tarragona), but Hasdrubal eluded his attack, and P. Cornelius Scipio was sent to command in Spain. Nero commanded as legatus (Liv. 27.14) under Marcellus B. C. 209, and the battle in which Hannibal was defeated near Canusium (Canosa). In B. C. 207, Nero was consul with M. Livius II. Nero marched into the south of Italy against Hannibal, whom he defeated and pursued. In the mean time Hasdrubal, who was in the north of Italy, sent messengers to Hannibal, who was retreating to Metapontum, followed by Nero. The messengers were taken by the Romans, and the contents of their despatches being read, Nero determined not to confine himself to the limits of his command, but to march against Hasdrubal, who was intending to effect a junction with Hannibal in Umbria. He communicated his design to the Roman senate, and instructed them how to act. Nero joined his colleague M. Livius in Picenum. A sanguinary battle was fought with Hasdrubal on the river Metaurum, in which Hasdrubal fell: in no one battle in the campaign with Hannibal was the slaughter so great. Nero returned to his camp in the south, taking with him the head of Hasdrubal, which he ordered to be thrown before the posts of Hannibal, and he sent him two of his captives to tell him what had befallen his brother and his army. (Liv. 27.41_51; Appian, Annibal. 52, &c.) Nero shared in the triumph of his colleague, but as the battle was fought in his colleague's province, Livius rode in a chariot drawn by four horses followed by his soldiers; Nero rode on horseback, without a train, but the popular opinion made up for his diminished honours., This great battle, which probably saved Rome, gave a lustre to the name of Nero, and consecrated it among the recollections of the Romans.

Quid debeas, o Roma, Neronibus, Testis Metaurum flumen et Hasdrubal Devictus. Hor. Carm. 4.4.

In B. C. 201, Nero and others were sent on a mission to Ptolemaeus, king of Egypt, to announce the defeat of Hannibal, thank the king for his fidelity to the Romans, and pray for his support if they should be compelled to go to war with Philippus, king of Macedonia.

The relationship of Nero to the other Claudii does not appear. He was censor B. C. 204, with M. Livius (Liv. 29.37).

Nero

3. C. Claudius Nero was praetor B. C. 181, and had the province of Sicily (Liv. 40.18). He may be the son of No. 2.

Nero

4. APP. CLAUDIUS NERO was praetor B. C. 195 (Liv. 33.43), with Hispania Ulterior as his province. Nothing is recorded of his operations in Spain, and it is doubtful if he went there, for the fear of a Spanish war soon subsided. In B. C. 189, he was one of ten commissioners (legali) who were sent into Asia to settle affairs. (Liv. 37.55.)

Nero

5. Tib. Claudius Nero was praetor B. C. 204 (Liv. 29.1 ), and had Sardinia for his province. He may have been tbe son of No. 2. In B. C. 202 he was consul with M. Servilius Geminus (Liv. 30.26), and he obtained as his province Africa, where he was to have the command against Hannibal conjointly with P. Cornelius Scipio. But he was not present at the battle of Zama. A violent storm attacked his fleet soon after he set out, and he put in at Populonii. He thence passed on to Ilva (Elba), and to Corsica. In his passage to Sardinia his ships suffered still more, and he finally put into Carales (Cagliari) in Sardinia, where he was obliged to winter, and whence he returned to Rome in a private capacity, his year of office having expired. (Liv. 30.39.)

Nero

6. Tib. Claudius Nero, praetor, B. C. 178, had the Peregrina Jurisdictio, but he was sent to Pisao with a military command to take care of the province of M. Junius the consul, who was sent into Gallia to raise troops (Liv. 41.98), and his command there was extended. (Liv. 41.18.) In B. C. 172 he was sent on a mission into Asia. (Liv. 42.19.) Tib. Claudius was praetor again in B. C. 165, with Sicily for his province. (Liv. 115.16.)

Nero

7. Tib. Claudius Nero served under Cn. Pompeius Magnus in the war against the pirates, B. C. 67. (Florus 3.6; Appian, Mithridat. 95.) He is probably the Tib. Nero mentioned by Sallust (Bell. Cat. 50) and by Appian (App. BC 2.5), who recommended that the members of the conspiracy of Catiline, who had been seized, should be kept confined till Catiline was put down, and they knew the exact state of the facts.

Nero

8. Tib. Claudius Nero, the father of the emperor Tiberius, was probably the son of No. 7. He was a descendant of Tib. Nero [see above, No. 1 ], the son of App. Claudius Caecus. He served as quaestor under C. Julius Caesar (B. C. 48) in the Alexandrine war (B. Al. 25; D. C. 42.40), and commanded a fleet which defeated the Egyptian fleet at the Canopic mouth of the Nile. He was rewarded for his services in Caesar's cause by being made a pontifex in the place of P. Cornelius Scipio, and was employed in establishing colonies in Gallia north of the Alps, among which Narbo (Narbonne) and Arelate (Arles) are mentioned; but the colony to Narbo was a supplementum, for it was settled A. D. 116. On the assassination of Caesar he went so far as to propose that the assassins should be rewarded. He was praetor probably in B. C. 42. On the quarrels breaking out among the triumviri he fled to Perusia and joined the consul L. Antonius, who was besieged there B. C. 41. In this year his eldest son Tiberius, the future emperor, was born: his mother was Livia Drusilla, the daughter of Livius Drusus. When Perusia surrendered in the following year, Nero effected his escape to Praeneste and thence to Naples, and after having made an unsuccessful attempt to arm the slaves by promising them their freedom, he passed over to Sext. Pompeius in Sicily (comp. Suet. Cl. 4, and D. C. 48.15). His wife and child, scarcely two years old, accompanied Nero in his flight. At Naples, while they were secretly trying to get a ship, they were nearly betrayed by the cries of the child. Nero, not liking the reception that he met with from Pompeius, passed over to M. Antonius in Achaea, and, on a reconciliation being effected between M. Antonius and Octavianus at the close of the year (B. C. 40), he returned with his wife to Rome. Livia, who possessed great beauty, excited the passion of Octavianus, to whom she was surrendered by her husband, being then six months gone with child of her second son Drusus. Nero gave Livia away as a father would his daughter (B. C. 38), but he must have formally divorced her first. The old and the new husband and the wife sat down together to the marriage entertainment. When Drusus was born, Caesar sent the boy to his father, for, being begotten during Nero's marriage with Livia, Nero was his lawful father. Caesar, who was a man of great method, made an entry in his memorandumbook, to the effect "that Caesar sent to Nero his father the child that was born of Livia his wife." (D. C. 48.44; Tacit. Annal. 1.10, 5.1.) Nero died shortly after, and left Caesar the tutor of his two sons. If Tiberius was born in B. C. 42 (see Clinton, Fasti, B. C. 42), Nero died in B. C. 34 or 33, for Tiberius, his son, pronounced his funeral oration in front of the Rostra, when he was nine years old. [G.L]

Nero

Roman emperor, A. D. 54-68. The emperor Nero was the son of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, and of Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus Caesar, and sister of Caligula. Nero's original name was L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, but after the marriage of his mother with her uncle, the emperor Claudius, he was adopted by Claudius A. D. 50, and was called Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus. Claudius had a son, Britannicus, who was three or four years younger than Nero.

Nero was born at Antium, a favourite residence of many of the Roman families, on the coast of Latium on the 15th of December A. D. 37 (comp. Suet. Nero 100.6, ed. Burmann; Tac. Ann. 12.25, ed. Oberlin, and the notes in both). Shortly after his adoption by Claudius, Nero being then sixteen years of age, married Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messallina. Among his early instructors was Seneca. Nero had some talent and taste. He was fond of the arts, and made verses; but he was indolent and given to pleasure, and had no inclination for laborious studies. His character, which was naturally weak, was made worse by his education; and when he was in the possession of power he showed what a man may become who has not been subjected to a severe discipline, and who in a private station might be no worse than others who are rich and idle.

On the death of Claudius, A. D. 54, Agrippina, who had always designed her son to succeed to the power of the Caesars, kept the emperor's death secret for a while. All at once the gates of the palace were opened, and Nero was presented to the guards by Afranius Burrhus, praefectus praetorio, who announced Nero to them as their master. Some of them, it is said, asked where was Britannicus; but there was no effort made to proclaim Britannicus, and Nero being carried to the praetorian camp, was saluted as imperator by the soldiers, and promised them the usual donation. The senate confirmed the decision of the soldiers, and the provinces quietly received Nero as the new emperor. (Tac. Ann. 12.69; D. C. 61.1, &c.)

Nero showed at the commencement that he had not all the acquirements which the Romans had been accustomed to see in their emperors. His public addresses were written by Seneca, for Nero was deficient in one of the great accomplishments of a Roman, oratory. The beginning of his reign was no worse than might be expected in an illeducated youth of seventeen; and the senate were allowed to make some regulations which were supposed to be useful (Tac. Ann. 13.4). The affairs of the East required attention. The Less Armenia was given to Aristobulus, a Jew, and son of Herodes, king of Chalcis. Sophene was given to Sohemus.

The follies and crimes of Nero were owing to his own feeble character and the temper of his mother. This ambitious woman wished to govern in the name of her son, and she received all the external marks of respect which were due to one who possessed sovereign power. Seneca and Burrhus exerted their influence with Nero to oppose her designs, and thus a contest commenced which must end in the destruction of Agrippina or her opponents. Nero began to indulge his licentious inclinations without restraint, and one of his boon companions was an accomplished debauchee, Otho, who afterwards held the imperial power for a few months. Nero assumed the consulship A. D. 55, with L. Antistius Vetus for his colleague. The jealousy between him and his mother soon broke out into a quarrel, and Agrippina threatened to join Britannicus and raise him to his father's place. Nero's fears drove him to commit a crime which at once stamped his character and took away all hopes of his future life. Britannicus, who was just going to complete his fourteenth year, was poisoned by the emperor's order, at an entertainment where Agrippina and Octavia were present. Nero showed his temper towards his mother by depriving her of her Roman and German guard; but an appearance of reconciliation was brought about by the bold demeanour of Agrippina against some of her accusers, whom Nero punished. (Tac. Ann. 13.19_22.)

In A. D. 57 Nero was consul for the second time with L. Calpurnius Piso as his colleague, and in A. D. 58, for the third time with Valerius Messalla. Nero, who had always shown an aversion to his wife Octavia, was now captivated with the beauty of Poppaea Sabina, the wife of his companion Otho, a woman notorious for her dissolute conduct. Otho was got out of the way by being made governor of Lusitania, where he acquired some credit, and passed the ten remaining years of Nero's life.

The affairs of Armenia, which had been seized by the Parthians, occupied the Romans from the beginning of Nero's reign, and Domitius Corbulo was sent there to conduct the war. This vigorous commander re-established discipline among the troops. The chief struggle commenced A. D. 58, with Tiridates, who had been made king of Armenia by the Parthian king Vologeses, who was his brother. Corbulo was ambitious to make the Roman arms again triumphant in the countries in which L. Lucullus and Cn. Pompeius had once acquired military fame. After some attempt at negotiation, Corbulo prosecuted the war with great activity. He took and destroyed Artaxata, the capital of Armenia; and afterwards, marching to the town of Tigranocerta, which the Romans had formerly captured under Lucullus, he took this strong place also, or, according to other accounts, it surrendered like Artaxata (Tac. Ann. 13.41, 14.24). The capture of Tigranocerta took place A. D. 60, and the Romans were now complete masters of Armenia. The affairs of the Rhenish frontier were tolerably quiet in the early part of Nero's reign. The Roman soldiers, under Paullinus Pompeius on the lower Rhine, were employed in finishing the embankments which Drusus had begun sixty-three years before for checking the waters of the river; and L. Vetus formed the noble design of uniting the Arar (Saone) and Moselle by a canal, and thus connecting the Mediterranean and the German Ocean by an uninterrupted water communication, through the Rhone and the Rhine. But the mean jealousy of Aelius Gracilis, the legatus of Belgica, frustrated this design.

Nero's passion for Poppaea was probably the immediate cause of his mother's death. Poppaea aspired to marry the emperor, but she had no hopes of succeeding in her design while Agrippina lived, and accordingly she used all her arts to urge Nero to remove out of the way a woman who kept him in tutelage and probably aimed at his ruin. That Agrippina might have attempted to destroy her son, or at least to give the imperial power to some new husband of her choice, is probable enough; and it is a significant fact, that we find her own head and that of Nero on the same face of a medal, and that at the beginning of his reign she was hardly prevented from assuming the discharge of the imperial functions (Tac. Ann. 13.5). After an unsuccessful attempt to cause her death in a vessel near Baiae, she was assassinated by Nero's order (A. D. 59), with the approbation at least of Seneca and Burrhus, who saw that the time was come for the destruction either of the mother or the son (Tac. Ann. 14.7). The death of Agrippina was communicated to the senate by a letter which Seneca drew up, and this servile body, with the exception of Thrasea Paetus, returned their congratulations to the emperor, who shortly after returned to Rome. But though he was well received, he felt the punishment of his guilty conscience, and said that he was haunted by his mother's spectre (Suet. Nero 34). A great eclipse of the sun happened during the sacrifices which were made for the death of Agrippina, and there were other signs which superstition interpreted as tokens of the angler of the gods (D. C. 61.16, ed. Reimarus, and the note). Nero drowned his reflections in fresh riot, in which he was encouraged by a band of flatterers. One of his great passions was chariot-driving, and he was ambitious to gain credit as a musician, and actually appeared as a performer on the theatre. At the same time his extravagance was exhausting the finances, and preparing the way for his ruin, though unfortunately it was still deferred for some years.

In A. D. 60, Nero was consul for the fourth time with C. Cornelius Lentulus for his colleague. There was a comet in this year, which then, as in more recent times, was considered to portend some great change. In this year Tigranes was settled as king of Armenia, and the Roman commander Corbulo, leaving some soldiers to protect him, retired to his province of Syria. The fear of Nero now induced him to urge Rubellius Plautus, who belonged to the family of the Caesars through his mother Julia, the daughter of Drusus, to leave Rome. Plautus was a man of good character, and Nero considered him a dangerous rival. He retired to Asia, where he was put to death two years after by Nero's order (Tac. Ann. 14.22; D. C. 62.14). In A. D. 61, the great rising in Britain under Boadicea took place, which was put down by the ability and vigour of the Roman commander Suetonius Paullinus.

The praetor Antistius was charged with writing scandalous verses against Nero, and he was tried under the law of majestas, and only saved by Thrasea from being condemned to death by the senate. Antistius was banished, and his property made public. Fabricius Veiento, who had written freely against the senate and the priests, was convicted and banished from Italy. His writings were ordered to be burnt, the consequence of which was they were eagerly sought after and read : when they were no longer forbidden they were soon forgotten, as Tacitus remarks (Ann. 14.49), and his remark has much practical wisdom in it. The death of Burrhus (A. D. 62) was a calamity to the state. Nero placed in command of the praetorian troops, Fennius Rufus and Sofonius Tigellinus: Rufus was an honest inactive man; Tigellinus was a villain, whose name has been rendered infamous by the crimes to which he urged his master, and those which he committed himself. Seneca, who saw his credit going, wisely asked leave to retire; and the philosopher, who could not approve of all Nero's excesses, though his own moral character is at least doubtful, left his old pupil to follow his own way and the counsels of the worst men in Rome.

Nero was now more at liberty. In order that he might marry Poppaea, he divorced his wife Octavia, on the alleged ground of sterility, and in eighteen days he married Poppaea. Not satisfied with putting away his wife, he was instigated by Poppaea to charge her with adultery, for which there was not the slightest ground, and she was banished to the little island of Pandataria, where she was shortly after put to death. According to Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 14.64) Octavia was only in her twentieth year; her unhappy life and her untimely death were the subject of general commiseration.

The affairs of Armenia (A. D. 62) were still in a troubled state, and the accounts of the historians of the period are not very clear. The Parthians again invaded Armenia, and Tiridates attempted to recover it from Tigranes. It seems to have been agreed between Vologeses and Corbulo that Tiridates should have Armenia, and that hostilities should cease. But the ambassadors whom Vologeses sent to Rome, returned without accomplishing the object of their mission, and the war against the Parthians in Armenia was renewed under L. Caesennius Paetus. But the incompetence of the general caused the ruin of the enterprise, and he was forced to sue for terms to Vologeses, and to consent to evacuate Armenia (Tac. Ann. 15.16; D. C. 62.21). In the following year Corbulo came to terms with Tiridates, who did homage to the portrait of Nero in the presence of the Roman commander (Tac. Ann. 15.30), and promised that he would go to Rome, as soon as he could prepare for his journey, to ask the throne of Armenia from the Roman emperor. The town of Pompeii in Campania was nearly destroyed in this year by an earthquake. Poppaea gave birth at Antium to a daughter, who received the title of Augusta, which was also given to the mother. The joy of Nero was unbounded, but the child died before it was four months old.

The origin of the dreadful conflagration at Rome (A. D. 64) is uncertain. It is hardly credible that the city was fired by Nero's order, though Dion and Suetonius both attest the fact, but these writers are always ready to believe a scandalous tale. Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 15.38) leaves the matter doubtful. The fire originated in that part of the circus which is contiguous to the Caelian and Palatine hills, and of the fourteen regiones of Rome three were totally destroyed, and in seven others only a few halfburnt houses remained. A prodigious quantity of property and valuable works of art were burnt, and many lives were lost. The emperor set about rebuilding the city on an improved plan, with wider streets, though it is doubtful if the salubrity of Rome was improved by widening the streets and making the houses lower, for there was less protection against the heat. Nero found money for his purposes by acts of oppression and violence, and even the temples were robbed of their wealth. With these means he began to erect his sumptuous golden palace, on a scale of magnitude and splendour which almost surpasses belief. The vestibule contained a colossal statue of himself one hundred and twenty feet high (Suet. Nero 100.31; Martial, Spect. Ep. 2). The odium of the conflagration which the emperor could not remove from himself, he tried to throw on the Christians, who were then numerous-in Rome, and many of them were put to a cruel death (Tac. Ann. 15.44, and the note of Lipsius).

The tyranny of Nero at last (A. D. 65) led to the organisation of a formidable conspiracy against him, which was discovered by Milichus, a freedman of Flavius Scevinus, a senator and one of the conspirators. The discovery was followed by many executions. C. Calpurnius Piso was put to death, and the poet Lucan, a vile flatterer of Nero (Pharsal 1.33, &c.), * The critics take the verses to be ironical. Let the reader judge. had the favour of being allowed to open his veins. Plautius Lateranus was hurried to death without having time allowed to embrace his children. It is not certain if Seneca was privy to the conspiracy: Dion, of course, says that he was. It is probable that some proposals might have been made to him by the conspirators, and it is probable that he declined to join them. However this may be, the time was come for Nero to get rid of his old master, and, with his counsellors Poppaea and Tigellinus near him, he sent Seneca orders to die. The philosopher opened his veins, and, after long suffering, he was taken into a bath or vapour room, which stifled him. It seems that Seneca died about the time when the conspiracy was discovered ; Lucan and others died after him. The senate was assembled, as if they were going to hear the results of a successful war, and Tigellinus was rewarded with the triumphal ornaments. (Tac. Ann. 15.72.)

The death of Poppaea came next. Her brutal husband, in a fit of passion, kicked her when she was with child, and she died of the blow. Her body was not burnt, but embalmed and placed in the sepulchre of the Julii. Nero now proposed to marry Antonia, the daughter of the emperor Claudius and his sister by adoption, but she refused the honour, and was consequently put to death. Nero, however, did marry Statilia Messallina, the widow of Vestinus, whom he put to death, because he had married Messallina, with whom Nero had cohabited.

The catalogue of the crimes of Nero makes the greater part of his life, but his crimes show the character of the man and of the times, and to what a state of abject degradation the Roman senate was reduced, for the senate was made the instrument of murder. The jurist C. Cassius Longinus was exiled to Sardinia. L. Junius Silanus Torquatus, a man of merit, L. Antistins Vetus, his mother-in-law Sextia, and his daughter Pollutia, the wife of Rubellius Plautus, were all sacrificed. Virtue in any form was the object of Nero's fear. For some reason or caprice the emperor gave a large sum, which we may assume was public money, to rebuild Lugdunum (Lyon), which had suffered by a fire; and the town showed its gratitude, by espousing his cause when he was deserted by every body. The grant, however, was made some years after the conflagration.

In the reign of Nero (A. D. 66) Apollonius of Tvana visited Rome, and, though he was accused of magic, he had the good luck to escape. Nero now became jealous of the philosophers, and Musonius Rufus, a Roman eques and a stoic philosopher, was banished by the emperor. The fragment of the sixteenth book of the Annals of Tacitus concludes with the account of the death of Annaeus Mella, the father of Lucan, and C. Petronius, a man of pleasure, but probably not the author of the Satyrica. Nero, as Tacitus says (Ann. 16.21), now attacked virtue itself in the persons of Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. The crime of Thrasea was his virtue: the charge against him was that he kept away from the senate, and by his absence condemned the proceedings of that body. The senate condemned him to die, but he had the choice of the mode of death, and he opened his veins. Soranus was rich, and that made part of his crime. He was condemned with his young daughter Servilia, who had without his knowledge consulted the fortune-tellers to know what would be her father's fate. (Tac. Ann. 16.30, &c.) With the death of Thrasea, who, as the blood flowed from his veins, declared it to be a libation to Jupiter the Liberator, the fragment of the sixteenth book of Tacitus ends, and the fate of the despicable tyrant has not been transmitted to us in the words of the indignant historian, who himself is compelled to apologise for his tedious record of crimes and bloodshed. (Tac. Ann. 16.16.)

The time chosen for the death of Thrasea and Soranus was that when Tiridates was preparing to make his entry into Rome. The Armenian king came by land to Rome with his wife and his children. The provinces that he passed through had to support the expense of his numerous train. He entered Italy from Illyricum, and was received by Nero at Naples, before whom he fell on his knees, and acknowledged him as his lord. Tiridates was conducted to Rome, where he humbled himself before Nero in the theatre, who gave him the crown .of Armenia and permission to rebuild Artaxata (D. C. 63.6). Tiridates went home by way of Brundusium. Vologeses was invited to Rome by Nero to go through the' same ceremony, but he declined the honour, and suggested that if Nero wished to see him he should come to Asia. (D. C. 63.7.)

Nero formed some plans for extending the empire, and various expeditions were talked of, but Nero was not a soldier: he had not even that Roman virtue. In the latter part of this year he visited Achaea with a great train, to show his skill to the Greeks as a musician and charioteer, and to receive the honours which were liberally bestowed upon him. While Nero was in Achaea, Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, sent him intelligence of his defeat by the Jews, who were in arms; on which Nero sent Vespasian, the future emperor, to carry on the war against them, and Mucianus to take the administration of Syria.

In the year A. D. 67 Nero was present at the Olympic games, which had been deferred from the year 65 in order that so distinguished a person might be present. To commemorate his visit he declared all Achaea to be free, which was publicly proclaimed at Corinth on the day of the celebration of the Isthmian games. But the Greeks paid dear for what they got, by the price of every thing being raised in consequence of Nero's visit; and they witnessed one of his acts of cruelty, in putting to death, at the Isthmian games, a singer whose voice drowned that of the imperial performer. (Lucian, Nero, vol. iii. p. 642, ed. Hemst.) Nero also paid a visit to Delphi, and got a kind of indirect promise of a long life; but other matters reported about this visit are somewhat confusedly told by different authorities. He also designed a canal across the Isthmus, which was commenced with great parade, and Nero himself first struck the ground with a golden spade. The works were carried on vigorously for a time, but were suspended by his own orders. While Nero was in Greece he summoned Corbulo there in an affectionate letter, but, on the old soldier arriving at Cenchreae, Nero sent orders to put him to death, which Corbulo anticipated by stabbing himself. Thus perished a man who had served the empire and the emperor faithfully, and whose military talent and integrity entitled him to the name of a genuine Roman. (Dion. 63.17.)

Nero had left Helius a freedman in the administration of Rome, with full power to do as he pleased, which power he abused. Helius, foreseeing the mischief that was preparing for his master, wrote to request him to return to Rome, and finally he went to Greece to urge his departure. Nero left Greece probably in the autumn of A. D. 67. He entered Rome in triumph, as befitted an Olympic victor, through a breach made in the walls, riding in the car of Augustus, with a musician at his side; and he displayed the numerous crowns that he had received in his Grecian visit. Music, chariot driving, and the like amusements, occupied this foolish man until, as Tillemont naively remarks, the rising in Spain and Gaul gave him other occupation.

Silius Italicus, the poet, and Galerius Trachalus were consuls A. D. 68, the last year of Nero's life. The storm that had long been preparing broke out in Gaul, where Julius Vindex, the governor of Celtica, called the people together, and, pointing out their grievances, and pourtraying the despicable character of Nero, urged them to revolt. Vindex was soon at the head of a large army, and he wrote to Galba, who was governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, to offer his assistance in raising him to the imperial power. Galba at the same time learned that Nero had sent orders to put him to death, on which he made a public harangue against the crimes of Nero, and was proclaimed emperor; but he only assumed the title of legatus of the senate and the Roman people. Nero was at Naples when he heard of the rising in Gaul. which gave him little concern, and he went on with his ordinary amusements. At last he came to Rome, where he heard of the insurrection of Galba, which threw him into a violent fit of passion and alarm, but he had neither ability nor courage to organise any effectual means of resistance. The senate declared Galba an enemy of the state; and Nero, for some reason or other, deprived the two consuls of their office, and made himself sole consul. This was his fifth consulate. Possibly he had some vague idea of putting himself more distinctly at the head of affairs with the title of sole consul, which Cn. Pompeius had once enjoyed before him and C. Julius Caesar.

Verginius Rufus, governor in Upper Germany, a man of ability and integrity, was not favourable to the pretensions of Galba. Rufus first marched against Vindex, and was supported by those parts of Gaul which bordered on the Rhine; the town of Lyon, with others, declared against Vindex. Verginius laid siege to Vesontio (Besanqon), and Vindex came to relieve it. The two generals had a conference, and appear to have come to some agreement; but, as Vindex was going to enter the town, the soldiers of Verginius, thinking that he was about to attack them, fell on the troops of Vindex. The whole affair is very confused; but the fact that Vindex perished, or killed himself, is certain. The soldiers now destroyed the statues of Nero, and proclaimed Verginius as Augustus; but he steadily refused the honour, and declared that he would submit to the orders of the senate. The death of Vindex discouraged Galba, who was beginning to lose all hopes, when he received intelligence from Rome that he was recognised as the successor of Nero.

A famine at Rome, and the exertion that Nero was making to raise money, hastened his ruin. Nymphidius Sabinus, who was now praefectus praetorio with Tigellinus, taking advantage of a rumour that Nero was going to fly to Egypt, persuaded the troops to proclaim Galba. Nero was immediately deserted. He escaped from the palace at night with a few freedmen, and made his wav to a house about four miles from Rome, which belonged to Phaon, one of his freedmen, where he passed the night and part of the following day in a state of agonising terror. His hiding-place being known, a centurion with some soldiers was sent to seize him. Though a coward, Nero thought a voluntary death better than the indignities which he knew were preparing for him; and, after some irresolution, and with the aid of his secretary Epaphroditus, he gave himself a mortal wound when he heard the trampling of the horses on which his pursuers were mounted. The centurion on entering attempted to stop the flow of blood, but Nero saying, "It is too late. Is this your fidelity?" expired with a horrid stare.

The body of Nero received funeral honours suitable to his rank, and his ashes were placed in the sepulchre of the Domitii by two of his nurses and his concubine Acte, who had won Nero's affections from his wife Octavia at the beginning of his reign. (Tac. Ann. 13.12; Suet. Nero 50.) Suetonius, after his manner, gives a description of Nero's person, which is not very flattering: the "cervix obesa" of Suetonius is a characteristic of Nero's bust. (Lib. of Entertaining Knowledge, Townley Gallery, vol. ii. p. 28.)

In his youth Nero was instructed in all the liberal knowledge of the time except philosophy; and he was turned from the study of the old Roman orators by his master Seneca. Accordingly, he applied himself to poetry, and Suetonius says that his verses were not made for him, as some suppose, for the biographer had seen and examined some of Nero's writing-tablets and small books, in which the writing was in his own hand, with many erasures and cancellings and interlineations. He had also skill in painting and modelling. Though profuse and fond of pomp and splendour, Nero had apparently some taste. The Apollo Belvedere and the Fighting Gladiator, as it is called, by Agasias, were found in the ruins of a villa at Antium, which is conjectured to have belonged to Nero. (See Thiersch, Ueber die Epochen der Bildenden Kunst, &c. p. 312, 2d ed.)

Nero's progress in crime is easily traced, and the lesson is worth reading. Without a good education, and with no talent for his high station, he was placed in a position of danger from the first. He was sensual, and fond of idle display, and then he became greedy of money to satisfy his expenses; he was timid, and by consequence he became cruel when he anticipated danger; and, like other murderers, his first crime, the poisoning of Britannicus, made him capable of another. But, contemptible and cruel as he was, there are many persons who, in the same situation, might run the same guilty career. He was only in his thirty-first year when he died, and he had held the supreme power for thirteen years and eight months. He was the last of the descendants of Julia, the sister of the dictator Caesar.

There were a few writers in the time of Nero who have been preserved-Persius the satirist, Lucan, the author of the Pharsalia, and Seneca, the preceptor of Nero. The jurists, C. Cassius Longinus, after whom the Sabiniani were sometimes called Cassiani, and Nerva, the father of the emperor Nerva, lived under Nero. (Tac. Ann. xiii.xvi.; Suet. Ner.; Dio Cass. lxi.-lxiii. ed. Reimarus. All the authorities for the facts of Nero's life are collected by Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, vol. i.)

[G.L]

Nero

the eldest son of Germanicus and Agrippina, was a youth of about twelve years of age at the death of his father in A. D. 19. In the following year (A. D. 20) he was commended to the favour of the senate by the emperor Tiberius, who went through the form of requesting that body to allow Nero to become a candidate for the quaestorship five years before the legal age. He likewise had the dignity of pontiff conferred upon him, and about the same time was married to Julia, the daughter of Drusus, who was the son of the emperor Tiberius. Nero had been betrothed in the lifetime of his father to the daughter of Silanus (Tac. Ann. 2.43), but it appears that this marriage never took effect. By the death of Drusus, the son of Tiberius, who was poisoned at the instigation of Sejanus in A. D. 23, Nero became the heir to the imperial throne; and as Sejanus had compassed the death of Drusus, in order that he might succeed Tiberius, the same motives led him to plan the death of Nero, as well as of his younger brother Drusus. And this he found no difficulty in accomplishing, as the jealous temper of Tiberius had already become alarmed at the marks of public favour which were exhibited to Nero and Drusus as the sons of Germanicus, and he had expressed his displeasure in the senate, in A. D. 24, at the public prayers which had been offered for their health. Spies were placed about Nero, and every word and action of the unhappy young prince were eagerly caught up, misinterpreted and misrepresented, and then reported to the emperor. His wife was also entirely in the interests of Sejanus, since her mother was the mistress of the allpowerful minister; and his brother Drusus, who was of an unamiable disposition, and who did not stand so high in the favour of their mother Agrippina, was readily induced to second the designs of Sejanus, in hopes that the death of Nero would secure him the succession to the throne. At length, in A. D. 29, Tiberius sent a letter to the senate in which he accused Agrippina and Nero in the bitterest terms, but was unable to convict them of any attempt at rebellion; the haughtiness of the former and the licentiousness of the latter were the chief crimes laid to their charge. The people, who loved Agrippina and hallowed the memory of Germanicus, surrounded the senate-house, exclaiming that the letter was a forgery. On the first day the senate came to no resolution on the matter, and Tiberius found it necessary to repeat his charges The obsequious body dared no longer resist; and the fate of Agrippina and Nero was sealed. Nero was declared an enemy of the state, was removed to the island of Pontia, and shortly afterwards was there starved to death. According to some accounts he put an end to his own life, when the executioner appeared before him with the instruments of death. (Tac. Ann. 3.29, 4.8, 17, 59, 60, 67, 5.3,4 ; Suet. Tib. 24, Cal. 7; D. C. 58.8.) Respecting Drusus, the brother of Nero, see DRUSUs, No. 16, and respecting Julia, the wife of Nero, see Julia, No. 9.

Nero

A Sabine word meaning “brave,” cognate with ἀνήρ. (1) Tiberius, a son of Appius Claudius, from whom all the Claudii Nerones were descended.

(2) A general in the Second Punic War, who defeated and slew the Carthaginian Hasdrubal at the battle of the Metaurus, thus probably saving Rome from capture (B.C. 207).

(3) Tiberius, father of the emperor and a partisan of Iulius Caesar and afterwards of Antony. He surrendered his beautiful wife Livia (q.v.) to Octavianus (Augustus), who married her. Nero died soon after (Tac. Ann. i. 10; v. 1; Dio Cass. xlviii. 44).

(4) Claudius Caesar. The sixth of the Roman emperors, born at Antium, in Latium, A.D. 37, nine months after the death of Tiberius. He was the son of Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus, and was originally named Lucius Domitius. After the death of Ahenobarbus, and a second husband, Crispus Passienus, Agrippina married her uncle, the emperor Claudius, who gave his daughter Octavia in marriage to her son Lucius, and subsequently adopted him with the formal sanction of a lex Curiata.

The education of Nero was carefully attended to in his youth. He was placed under the care of the philosopher Seneca, and appears to have applied himself with considerable perseverance to study. He is said to have made great progress in Greek, of which he gave a specimen in his sixteenth year, by pleading in that tongue the rights of the Rhodians, and of the inhabitants of Ilium (Suet. Nero, 7; Tac. Ann. xii. 58). At the death of Claudius (A.D. 54), while Agrippina, by flatteries and lamentations, detained Britannicus, the son of Claudius and Messalina, within the palace, Nero, presenting himself before the gates, was lifted by the guard-in-waiting into the covered chariot used for the purpose of carrying in procession an elected emperor, and was followed by a multitude of the people, under the illusion that it was Britannicus. He entered the camp, promised a donative to the cohorts, was saluted emperor, and pronounced before the Senate, in honour of Claudius, a panegyric composed by his preceptor Seneca.

Agrippina soon endeavoured to obtain the chief management of public affairs; and her vindictive and cruel temper would have hurried Nero, at the commencement of his reign, into acts of violence and bloodshed, if her influence had not been counteracted by Seneca and Burrus, to whom Nero had intrusted the government of the State. Through their counsels the first five years of Nero's reign were distinguished by justice and clemency; and an anecdote is related of him, that, having on one occasion to sign an order for the execution of a malefactor, he exclaimed, “Would that I could not write!” (Suet. Nero, 10). He discouraged public informers, refused the statues of gold and silver which were offered him by the Senate and people, and used every art to ingratiate himself with the latter. But his mother was enraged to find that her power over him became weaker every day, and that he constantly disregarded her advice and refused her requests. His neglect of his wife Octavia, and his criminal love of Acté, a woman of low birth, still farther widened the breach between him and his mother. She frequently addressed him in the most contemptuous language; reminded him that he owed his elevation solely to her, and threatened that she would inform the soldiers of the manner in which Claudius had met his end, and would call upon them to support the claims of Britannicus, the son of the late emperor. The threats of his mother only served to hasten the death of Britannicus, whose murder forms the commencement of that long catalogue of crimes which afterwards disgraced the reign of Nero. But while the management of public affairs appears, from the testimony of most historians, to have been wisely conducted by Burrus and Seneca, Nero indulged in private in dissipation and profligacy. He was accustomed, in company with other young men of his own age, to sally into the streets of Rome at night, in order to rob and maltreat passengers, and even to break into private houses and carry off the property of their owners. But these extravagances were comparatively harmless; his love for Poppaea, whom he had seduced from Otho, led him into more serious crimes. Poppaea, who was ambitious of sharing the imperial throne, perceived that she could not hope to attain her object while Agrippina was alive, and, accordingly, induced Nero to consent to the murder of his mother. The entreaties of Poppaea appear to have been supported by the advice of Burrus and Seneca; and the philosopher did not hesitate to justify the murder of a mother by her son (Tac. Ann. xiv. 11; Quint.viii. 5).

In the eighth year of his reign, Nero lost his best counsellor, Burrus; and Seneca had the wisdom to withdraw from the court, where his presence had become disliked, and where his enormous wealth was calculated to excite the envy even of the emperor. About the same time Nero divorced Octavia and married Poppaea, and soon after put to death the former on a false accusation of adultery and treason. In the tenth year of his reign (A.D. 64) Rome was almost destroyed by fire. Of the fourteen districts into which the city was divided, four only remained entire. The fire originated at that part of the Circus which was contiguous to the Palatine and Coelian Hills, and raged with the greatest fury for six days and seven nights; and, after it was thought to have been extinguished, it burst forth again, and continued for two days longer. Nero appears to have acted on this occasion with the greatest liberality and kindness; the city was supplied with provisions at a very moderate price; and the imperial gardens were thrown open to the sufferers, and buildings erected for their accommodation. But these acts of humanity and benevolence were insufficient to screen him from the popular suspicion. It was generally believed that he had set fire to the city himself, and some even reported that he had ascended the top of a high tower in order to witness the conflagration, where he amused himself with singing the “Destruction of Troy.” From many circumstances, however, it appears improbable that Nero was guilty of this crime. His guilt, indeed, is asserted by Suetonius (Nero, 38) and Dio Cassius (lxii. 17), but Tacitus admits that he was not able to prove the truth of the accusation (Ann. xv. 38). In order, however, to remove the suspicions of the people, Nero spread a report that the Christians were the authors of the fire, and numbers of them, accordingly, were seized and put to death. Their execution served as an amusement to the people. Some were covered with skins of wild beasts, and were torn to pieces by dogs; others were crucified; and several were smeared with pitch and other combustible materials, and burned in the imperial gardens in the night: “Whence,” says the historian, “pity arose for the guilty (though they deserved the severest punishments), since they were put to death, not for the public good, but to gratify the cruelty of a single man” (Tac. Ann. xv. 44).

In the following year (A.D. 65) a powerful conspiracy was formed for the purpose of placing Piso upon the throne, but it was discovered by Nero, and the principal conspirators were put to death. Among others who suffered on this occasion were Lucan and Seneca; but the guilt of the latter is doubtful. (See Seneca.) In the same year Poppaea died, in consequence of a kick which she received from her husband while she was in an advanced state of pregnancy. A long list of victims is to be found in the pages of the annalists. The distinguished general Domitius Corbulo, Thrasea Paetus, and Barea Soranus are among these.

During the latter part of his reign, Nero was principally engaged in amateur theatricals, and in contending for the prizes at the public games. He had previously appeared as an actor on the Roman stage; and he now visited in succession the chief cities of Greece, and received no less than 1800 crowns for his victories in the public Grecian games. He also began the canal across the Isthmus of Corinth, but ordered the work to be stopped (Dio Cass. lxiii. 6 foll.), leaving its completion to our own times (1893). On his return to Italy he entered Naples and Rome as a conqueror, and was received with triumphal honours. But while he was engaged in these extravagances, Vindex, who commanded the legions in Gaul, declared against his authority; and his example was speedily followed by Galba, who commanded in Spain. The praetorian cohorts espoused the cause of Galba, and the Senate pronounced sentence of death against Nero, who had fled from Rome as soon as he heard of the revolt of the Praetorian Guards. Nero, however, anticipated the execution of the sentence which had been passed against him, by requesting one of his attendants to put him to death, after making an ineffectual attempt to do so with his own hands. He died A.D. 68, in the thirty-second year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. See the chapter in Baring-Gould's Tragedy of the Caesars, vol. ii. (1892).

Nero Nero

• tries in vain to fathom Alcyonian lake: Paus. 2.37.5
• transfers Sardinia to Roman people: Paus. 7.17.3
• sets Greece free: Paus. 7.17.3
• carries off statues from Delphi: Paus. 10.7.1, Paus. 10.19.2, and Olympia: Paus. 5.25.9, Paus. 5.26.3
• carries off image of Love from Thespiae: Paus. 9.27.3
• his guilt towards his mother and wives: Paus. 9.27.4
• his offerings at the Heraeum: Paus. 2.17.6and at Olympia: Paus. 5.12.8