Kraichgauer wrote:
Yes; thank you for a more detailed account. As Nero was forevermore detested in Roman history, one can see why Roman historians would report rumors as facts.
Or since he was in a position of ultimate power, many of the facts could only see the light of day as rumors.
Nero's rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance. He is known for many executions, including that of his mother, and the probable murder by poison of his stepbrother Britannicus. In 64 A.D. numbers of Christians suffered death, with every refinement of torture, on a trumped-up charge of having caused the great burning of Rome, suspicion of which rested on Nero himself; a year later Seneca and the poet Lucan were executed as conspirators, and, having kicked to death his wife Poppæa, then far advanced in pregnancy, he offered his hand to Octavia, daughter of Claudius, and because she declined his suit ordered her death; these and many other similar crimes brought on inevitable rebellion. A wave of uprisings in 68 A.D. led to his flight from Rome and his eventual suicide.
He certainly would have fit the diagnosis as a psychopath and a megalomaniac.
03 Jan 2021, 9:16 pm
