Her extraordinary influence is demonstrated by contemporary coins with busts of both the emperor and his mother on the “heads” side. Nero was only 16 when he was acclaimed emperor, and his mother Agrippina asserted herself as the emperor’s guardian by appointing men loyal to her in key positions. These rumours can be explained as responses to an unusual political situation. People started to whisper that the pair had been doing more than reviewing imperial legislation behind the curtains.Įven more scandalous was the fact that the emperor took a mistress who turned out to be the spitting image of his mother – a situation which got tongues wagging throughout Rome.
One story involves Nero and his mother being carried through Rome in a litter (a portable couch concealed by curtains), only for the emperor to emerge with suspicious stains on his clothes. The Roman people loved to speculate about the emperors and their sex lives. As with the story of the Fire of Rome, this image of Nero derives solely from ancient rumours, not from facts.Īgrippina the Younger from Stuttgart.
His alleged sexual antics with his mother Agrippina have earned him a place on a list of the “ most sexually depraved things Romans ever did” and in news stories about his “ pleasure palace”. Nero has not only earned an undeserved reputation as an arsonist, but also as an incestuous deviant. In such a desperate situation, without reliable channels of information, it is easy to see how rumours could start. This is freely admitted by the historian Tacitus: even though Nero was out of Rome when the fire started, a rumour spread that the emperor had sung of the destruction of Troy from his palace stage.Ĭassius Dio describes chaos in the streets as the fire took hold, as people ran about asking each other how the blaze started. If we examine our historical accounts closely, the only evidence for Nero the arsonist comes from rumour and hearsay.
The Fire of Rome by Hubert Robert (1785) Google Art Project/Wikimedia There is a modern myth that the new palace was built solely for parties and orgies. The second reason often proffered is that Nero wanted to rebuild Rome according to his own plans, which included a sumptuous new residence for himself, the “Golden House” ( Domus Aurea). There is a story told by Suetonius that when a man said to Nero, ‘When I am dead, let the earth be consumed by fire’, the emperor replied, ‘No, while I live!’ The first is that he was a mad megalomaniac who burned down the city simply because he could. There are two reasons usually given for why Nero set fire to Rome. While most scholars now agree that Nero was not responsible for the fire, the modern-day rumour mill (as represented by the Internet) is loath to exonerate the emperor. 64 appearing in the histories of Tacitus and Cassius Dio and the biography of Nero by Suetonius. Nero had a reputation as an arsonist even in antiquity, with rumours that he started the Fire of Rome in A.D. This is because they are reported by sources as rumours, rather than facts.
These tales can be found in our ancient historical sources (all of which were written at least a generation after Nero’s death) but should not be taken at face value.