Nero

Simeon Stakic 8A

January 16, 2011

Nero

            Nero Claudius Caesar is one of the most interesting and controversial Roman emperors. Born as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, his mother Agrippina married his uncle Claudius, who died in 54 A.D. making Nero the emperor. Nero’s reign lasted until his death in 68 A.D. when he committed suicide. During his 14 years of rule, Nero made some crucial decisions which ultimately led to his dramatic downfall. He eliminated many of his enemies and or anyone who stood in his way and, eventually, he became too powerful ignoring the opinions of others, which ultimately led to his death. Nero was a very cruel, selfish and unpopular ruler who based his decisions on his own desires rather than the needs of the people.

            Nero was a very ruthless and harsh leader. Often ordering the death of anyone that defied him or stopped him from achieving what he wanted. His mother Agrippina was similar to him in that way. She wanted Nero to share his power. So she married Nero’s uncle, Claudius, who was emperor at the time. She soon poisoned him, which made Nero his successor. It is uncertain how much Nero was involved in the murder of Claudius, or whether or not he even took part in it. In the beginning of his rule, Nero was heavily influenced by his mother and his tutors. They helped him make important decisions as ruler. However, over time their influence declined, especially his mother’s. Since she could not control him so easily any more, she attempted to make Nero’s stepbrother, Brittanicus, ruler. The day before Brittanicus was to become an adult, Nero poisoned him in order to prevent him from overthrowing him. He then banished his mother Agrippina from the imperial residence. Later on in 59 A.D. he ordered the death of his mother, since she was trying to overthrow him once again. Nero was also very cruel toward his wives. His first wife was his stepsister, Claudia Octavia, whom he married in 53 A.D. He then had an affair with Poppaea Sabrina and banished Octavia, which left him free to marry Poppaea. When Nero was forced to let Octavia return because of protest from the people of Rome, he soon executed her in 62 A.D. However, later in 69 A.D. Nero also killed Poppaea by kicking her to death while she was pregnant. A good ruler of an empire needs to be kind towards both the people he rules and his family members. However, Nero was cruel towards his family, killing his wives, mother, and stepbrother because of his own needs.

            Besides being cruel, Nero was also a very selfish ruler. He often saw his personal needs to be more important than the ones of the empire. In 64 A.D, the Great Fire of Rome burned much of the city down. Although Nero was not in Rome during the time of the fire, he was held responsible for his actions after the fire. Nero decided that after the fire, a new Rome was to emerge, one that would be built from marble and stone. In the place that was cleared by the fire, Nero chose to build new houses out of stone on wider streets, as well as, his new palace. The place that was cleared by the fire used to be the area where people lived, but Nero chose to take part of it in order to build his palace. As construction continued, he began running out of money to build, so he decided to steal from the temples. This money came from battles that were won by the Roman military. After a victory a percentage of the booty was sent to temples to honor the gods. Because Nero stole money from an important source, senators planned to assassinate him but they failed. The money from the temples was still not enough so Nero figured out another way to get enough money. He told the rich people of the empire to either give a tenth of their property to him and have their families protected in the future, or to commit suicide. Most of the people that were faced with this decision committed suicide which sparked a rebellion against Nero. Overall, Nero’s selfish acts and his lack of respect for others show that he was not a good ruler.

            After the Great Fire of Rome in 64 A.D., the people of Rome blamed Nero for it. In order to avoid the blame, Nero accused an already unpopular group of people, the Christians. He ordered a few of them to be tortured until they admitted their guilt. Anyone who admitted to being Christian was captured and killed in many different ways as punishment. They could have been covered with the skins of wild animals and thrown to dogs that tore them apart. They could also have been nailed to crosses or set on fire. At the end of the day if they survived until night they were burned as candles. During that time two important Christian teachers were in Rome, Peter and Paul. Peter was crucified upside down and Paul was executed for trying to spread Christianity. There is no exact number of how many Christians were killed but it is known that the persecution lasted for many years throughout the entire empire.

            From all of this we can see that Nero was a cruel and selfish emperor who was harmful to the Empire. During his reign, Rome became weaker and chaos was commonplace. The greatest indicator that he was damaging to Rome was the opinion of the people at the time, especially the Christians whom Nero tortured. During the final few days of his life, Nero was hunted for and it was the duty of every citizen to either kill Nero or help others in doing so. Once Nero realized he had nowhere to hide, he committed suicide with his own dagger and the people of Rome celebrated his death, loudly demonstrating how unpopular Nero had become.

Bibliography:

Benario, Herbert. "Roman Emperors DIR Nero." Roman Emperors - DIR--De Imperatoribus Romanis oman History Roman Roman Empire Imperator Basileus De Imperatoribus Romanis Encyclopedia Byzantine. Web. 13 Jan. 2011. <http://www.roman-emperors.org/nero.htm>.

Duruy, Victor. "The Burning of Rome, 64 AD." EyeWitness to History - History through the Eyes of Those Who Lived It. Web. 13 Jan. 2011. <http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/rome.htm>.

"Nero." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 13 Jan. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero>.

Carrington, Phillip. "Nero Persecutes The Christians, 64 A.D." EyeWitness to History - History through the Eyes of Those Who Lived It. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. <http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/christians.htm>.

Ancient Rome The Rise and Fall of an Empire. Perf. Sean Pertwee, Catherine McCormack, Michael                            Sheen and David Threlfall. YouTube- Broadcast Yourself. 2006. Web. 17 Jan. 2011.                <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArnjjQTbXXY>.

Unit Reflection

The Byzantine Empire was very important and it affected the modern society in a big way. Since it took aspects from both the Greek and Roman Empire, it combined them into one strong empire. However, both of them fell so the Byzantine empire saved all of their great achievements that we still use today. The people of the Byzantine Empire mainly spoke Greek, adapting many aspects from the Greek culture. They rewrote a lot of Greek and Roman literature, that without them, we would not have today. They saved many discoveries in math, science, philosophy, as well as many inventions. If they hadn't have done that, today we wouldn't be so advanced since all of those things would be lost forever. The Byzantine Empire was also very advanced in art and architecture. They had adopted many aspects of art into mosaics that decorated churches. The mosaics were made of small pieces of glass or rocks that formed large pictures of saints or other holy people. Icons were also an important aspect of the Byzantine art as they were images of saints, Jesus Christ, or Mary. The Hagia Sophia is a great example of how advanced the Byzantine architecture was. It was a very large Christian church that was built during the reign of Emperor Justinian. It was a symbol of how powerful the empire was at that time, and how advance it was. The Byzantine Empire is very important even though it existed a long time ago, since it saved much of the information and achievements from the past so we still have them today. Thanks to them, we can learn and study about our past.

Mosaic Symbol

The Christian symbol that I chose to make as a mosaic is the Holy Grail. According to legend, the Holy Grail  is the bowl that was used by Jesus in The Last Supper. The quest of many knights became to retrieve it from Jerusalem and bring it to England. In all of those legends in which heroes search for The Grail, he must prove himself as being worthy enough to be in its presence. Later the Holy Grail got a new meaning. It became a symbol of God's grace which was available to all people, but only those that were spiritually prepared could understand its full meaning.

Field trip Reflection

Today we went on a field trip to St Petka's Chapel. Our assignment was to sketch a mosaic that we found and then analyze it. The mosaic that I chose was one of Saint Sava and his father Saint Simeon. Both of them are floating above the ground since their feet are positioned that way. Both of them are wearing layered clothing, but St Simeon has bright colors like red, yellow and a bit of blue, while St Sava is wearing white, grey with a bit of blue detail. St Sava is holding his hand up while bending his ring finger, which is a sign that he is teaching. In his other hand he is holing the Bible. St Simeon is holing a Slavic cross in his right hand and a scroll in his left hand. The scroll is written in Cyrillic and it says: "My beloved children." Both of them are saints since they both have the halo around their heads. Between them was a double headed eagle in a circle. The eagle represented the power of the Byzantine emperor, both in religion and in controlling the empire.

The mosaic follows all of the rules from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, since it has all of the components that it needs to have. It has floating feet, colors and many symbols which are necessary according to the Metropolitan Museum of art.

In my opinion, this mosaic is a good example of Byzantine Art, because it fits all the criteria and has the necessary components that we analyzed in class.