Nero was a roman emperor and lived from 37-68 C.E.
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Nero was the last of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty which began with Augustus 27 B.C.E.
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Was son of Agrippina (wife of Claudius).
Was made heir by Claudius (convinced by Agrippina).
Claudius dies making Nero heir (possibly poisoned by Agrippina).
He became emperor in 54 C.E.
At first he was too young to rule (16) his mother made many of the decisions
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Seneca encouraged him to make his own decisions.
He attempted to kill his mother by giving her a faulty boat. She survived and swam to shore.
Nero was not deterred by his failure, he hired an assassin to finish the job
Nero gained full control over Rome.
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He married several times, to his step sister Octavia, then to his mistress Poppaea.
He killed his first wife Octavia, on a charged of adultery after he divorced her. He did all this so he could marry his second wife.
He also notoriously married two boys, one of them being a child
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At night he went out in disguise and murdered innocent men and looted stores.
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A fire was started in the Circus Maximus and leveled almost half of Rome.
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Afterwards Nero built his massive golden palace that covered a third of Rome.
Everybody blamed Nero for the fire because he wanted to build his Golden Palace before the great fire of Rome.
People assumed that he wanted to clear space for his palace and the easiest way to do so was to burn all the buildings in the space he needed.
He ran the Roman treasury dry by building his palace.
Due to this he raised taxes.
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Nero needed to deter the public anger away from him. So he blamed the Christians for the fire.
Nero was the first emperor to persecute the Christians.
He Fed them to wild beasts in circuses and crucified thousands.
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He gave aid to the Jews.
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Finally the Senate declared him a public enemy which meant anyone could kill him with no punishment.
Nero was terrified so he fled to Greece. But He was found by the Roman army and arrest was imminent.
With the aid of his secretary he stabbed himself in the neck.
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