page_title: The Twelve Caesars
section_title: Nero
hierarchical_section_title: The Twelve Caesars / Constituent works / Nero
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Kopf des Nero (reg. 54-68 n. Chr.), von einer überlebensgroßen, etwa 2,40 m hohen Statue. Nach 64 n. Chr. English: Head of Nero (reign 54–68 CE), from an oversized statue, about 2.40 m height. After 64 BC. Français&#160;: Tête de Néron (règne 54-68 ap. J.-C.), provenant d'une statue plus grande que nature, haute d'environ 2,40 m. Après 64 ap. J.-C.
context_page_description: De vita Caesarum, commonly known as The Twelve Caesars, is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.
  The work, written in AD 121 during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, was the most popular work of Suetonius, at that time Hadrian's personal secretary, and is the largest among his surviving writings. It was dedicated to a friend, the Praetorian prefect Gaius Septicius Clarus.
  The Twelve Caesars was considered very significant in antiquity and remains a primary source on Roman history. The book discusses the significant and critical period of the Principate from the end of the Republic to the reign of Domitian; comparisons are often made with Tacitus, whose surviving works document a similar period.
context_section_description: Suetonius portrays the life of Nero in a similar fashion to that of Caligula—it begins with a recounting of how Nero assumed the throne ahead of Claudius' son Britannicus and then descends into a recounting of various atrocities the young emperor allegedly performed.
  One characteristic of Nero that Suetonius describes was Nero's enjoyment of music. Suetonius describes Nero as being a gifted musician.  Nero would often give great concerts with attendance compelled for upper-class Romans.  These concerts would last for hours on end, and some women were rumored to give birth during them, or men faking death to escape (Nero forbade anyone from leaving the performance until it was completed).
  Nero's eccentricities continued in the tradition of his predecessors in mental and personal perversions. According to Suetonius, Nero had one boy named Sporus castrated, and then had sex with him as though he were a woman. Suetonius quotes one Roman who lived around this time who remarked that the world would have been better off if Nero's father Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus had married someone more like the castrated boy.
  It is in Suetonius we find the beginnings of the legend that Nero "fiddled as Rome burned." Suetonius recounts how Nero, while watching Rome burn, exclaimed how beautiful it was, and sang an epic poem about the sack of Troy while playing the lyre.
  Suetonius describes Nero's suicide, and remarks that his death meant the end of the reign of the Julio-Claudians (because Nero had no heir). According to Suetonius, Nero was condemned to die by the Senate. When Nero knew that soldiers had been dispatched by the Senate to kill him, he committed suicide.
caption: Bust of Nero
exif: {"Image SubfileType": "Full-resolution Image", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D50", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "The GIMP", "Image DateTime": "2007:04:05 20:09:54", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 0, 255, 0, 255]", "Image CFARepeatPatternDim": "[2, 2]", "Image CFAPattern": "[2, 1, 1, 0]", "Image ExifOffset": "304", "Image Tag 0x9216": "[1, 0, 0, 0]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/80", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:02:08 15:21:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:02:08 15:21:00", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "8/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF SubSecTime": "40", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "40", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "40", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "75", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}