Handout for Nero
1) Nero was born in 37AD in Antium.
2) His biological parents were Agrippina and Cnaeus Domitius
Ahenobarbus.
3) Agrippina later married Claudius to get rule over the
empire.
4) Claudius died and Agrippina secures the empire to Nero
with the help of Burrus and his army.
5) Nero cleverly gets on the good side of the Senate in
the beginning.
6) At he same time, because he was a young boy, he allowed
his mother Agrippina to run much of the Empire, and allowed her face to
be carved next to his on the imperial coins.
7) Nero had Britannicus, his stepbrother, poisoned to prevent
competition for the throne.
8) Nero concentrates on the pleasures of life rather than
the responsibilities.
9) Once Nero started to enjoy life, he made the lives of
others miserable.
10) Nero divorced his wife Octavia to marry the younger
Poppaea.
11) Poppaea tells Nero his mother is plotting his fall,
so Agrippina is killed.
12) Many years passed and Nero became interested in art,
music, and athletics.
13) In 62AD, imperial agents killed Octavia after she was
exiled to Pandateria.
14) On July 18, 64AD, two-thirds of Rome was burned down
while Nero was in Antium.
15) In 65AD, the poet Lucan and Seneca form a conspiracy
against Nero and are killed.
16) 68AD, Nero flees to the House of Freedmen, four miles
from Rome. He kills himself before the soldiers could do the job.
17) Nero was the last Julio-Claudian emperor