NERO (NERO CLAUDIUS CAESAR AUGUSTUS GERMANICUS) (A.D. Roman emperor 54-68, was born at Antium on Dec. 15, 37. He was the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the younger, and his name was originally L. Domitius Ahenobarbus. His father died when Nero was scarcely three years old. In the previous year (39) his mother had been banished by order of her brother Caligula (Gaius), and Nero early found shelter in the house of his aunt Domitia. The emperor Claudius recalled Agrippina, who spent the next 13 years in a struggle to obtain the succession of the throne for Nero. She married Claudius in 49, and in 5o he adopted Nero as his son. Seneca was recalled from exile to be his tutor. On his fourteenth birthday he assumed the toga virilis, and was introduced to the Senate by Claudius with the title of princeps inventutis. This made his succession almost certain, and Agrippina subsequently got rid of the partisans of Britannicus and installed Burrus as praefect of the praetorian guard.
Agrippina's bold stroke has been completely successful. Only a few voices were raised for Britannicus ; nor is there any doubt that Rome was prepared to welcome the new emperor with genu ine enthusiasm. His prestige and his good qualities, carefully fos tered by Seneca, made him popular, while his darker passions were as yet unsuspected. His first acts confirmed this favourable im pression. He modestly declined the title of pater patriae; the mem ory of Claudius, and that of his own father Domitius were duly honoured. He promised to follow the principles of Augustus, and his clemency, liberality and affability were the talk of Rome.
Much of the credit of all this is due to Seneca and Burrus. Sen eca had seen from the first that the real danger with Nero lay in the savage vehemence of his passions, and he made it his chief aim to stave off by every means in his power the dreaded outbreak. The policy of indulging his tastes and helping him to enjoy the sweets of popularity without the actual burdens of government suc ceeded for the time. During the first five years of his reign, little occurred to damp the popular enthusiasm. Nero's promises were
fulfilled, and the senate found itself free to discuss and even to decide important administrative questions. Abuses were remedied. the provincials protected from oppression, and the burdens of taxation lightened. On the frontiers no serious disaster occurred, and even the murder of Britannicus was accepted as a necessary measure of self-defence. But an essential part of Seneca's policy was to remove Nero from the influence of his mother.
Ann. xiii. 52-20). During nearly three years she disappears from the history, and with her retirement things again for the time went smoothly. In 58 Nero was enslaved by Poppaea Sabina, a woman of a very different stamp from her predecessor. She was resolved to be Nero's wife, and her first object was the removal of Agrip pina. By rousing Nero's jealousy and fear she induced him to seek her death, with the aid of a freedman Anicetus, praefect of the fleet of Misenum. Agrippina was invited to Baiae, and after an affec tionate reception, was conducted on board a vessel so constructed as, at a given signal, to fall to pieces. But Agrippina saved herself by swimming, and wrote to her son, announcing her escape, and affecting entire ignorance of the plot. A body of soldiers under Anicetus then surrounded her villa, and murdered her in her own chamber. Nero was horrorstruck at the enormity of the crime and terrified at its possible consequences. But a six months' residence in Campania, and the congratulations which poured in upon him from the neighbouring towns, where the report had been officially spread that Agrippina had fallen a victim to her treacherous de signs upon the emperor, gradually restored his courage. In Sept. 59 he re-entered Rome amid universal rejoicing. Races, exhibi tions and games in the Greek fashion rapidly succeeded each other.