The Life of Emperor Nero

1750 Words4 Pages

Emperor Nero, infamously known as one of the most malevolent, oppressive, and tyrannical leader throughout history, was the last ruler of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. He was born outside Rome in Antium and his mother married his great uncle, Emperor Claudius, in order for her son to be the next Emperor of Rome. It wasn’t apparent that her son was to become one of the most feared and cruel leaders in Roman history from 54 CE to 68 CE. By examining his achievements and failures as an emperor, his influences and changes over the entire economic, political and social spectrum are revealed.

At this stage in the Roman Empire things were extremely dangerous and many power struggles within the royal family were arising. With the demise of the sadistic Emperor Caligula led to the rise of Emperor Claudius and Rome was left with instability. This created an omnipresence of fear which forced Agrippa, Nero’s mother, to secure a spot of safety by marrying her uncle Emperor Claudius. In order to achieve emperorship, Agrippa and Nero murdered Emperor Claudius which resulted in Nero becoming the youngest Emperor until that time, at the age of seventeen. His governing was significantly influenced by his mother, as well as his two dominant advisors Seneca and Burrus.

Even though he eventually did believe in complete dictatorship, primarily he was quite promising because of his moderate approach to governance. His tutor and advisor Seneca, who was one of the great intellectuals and philosophers at the time, taught Nero from a young age about mercy, justice and the sacredness of human life. These ideas appealed to Nero and he tried to gain popularity by following these moral ideas. He also allowed the senate to make more decisions which was appreci...

... middle of paper ...

...multifaceted system which people of greater experience even had difficulty controlling. Even though he developed the arts it wasn’t worth the amount of human suffering and deaths that occurred during his time. Ultimately the government system was set up to prevent civil war, but it eventually did collapse into civil war because Nero failed the system and the Roman people.

Works Cited

• Tacitus, C. (2005). The annals of imperial Rome. Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com.

• Tranquillus, C. S. (1978). Lives of the twelve Caesars. S.l.: Corner House Pub.

• Century, t. 4., Peter, a. n., & Paul.. (n.d.). Nero - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved January 2, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero

• Emperor Nero. (n.d.). The Roman Empire. Retrieved January 5, 2012, from http://www.roman-empire.net/emperors/nero-index.html

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