Nero: the people’s princeps?

At the time of his death in AD 68, the Roman emperor Nero, the last ruler of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, had dealt with riots, a notorious fire that ravaged Rome, conflict in the eastern and western reaches of the empire, and the killing of his mother. These events – written about by Roman historians like Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio – secured his long-lasting legacy as a reviled figure. But is there more to this image of Nero than meets the eye? While the histories were written by Rome’s elite, more humble texts, graffiti scratched into walls in Pompeii, reveal some voices spoke out in favour of the emperor.

Nero ascended the throne in AD 54 at the age of just 16, inheriting conflict with the powerful Parthian empire (centred in Iran) and in the recently conquered province of Britain. Though these were challenges that needed to be dealt with, his dramatic downfall did not appear to be inevitable at the start of the reign. He was the great-great-grandson of the revered first emperor Augustus, and had been carefully primed for the role of princeps or emperor. As Francesca Bologna, project curator of the British Museum’s new exhibition Nero: the man behind the myth, says, ‘All evidence seems to point to the fact that the passage of power was very smooth, and Claudius had every intention of preferring Nero to his own natural son as heir. Not only did Claudius marry Agrippina, Nero’s mother, but he also adopted Nero himself and he made him very prominent. In a way, he’s also prepared by his mother, who picks one of the best possible tutors she could – the philosopher Seneca – to train him in oratory and writing speeches and so on. From the point of view of his education, we see that Nero was being carefully prepared for the role.’

One marble statue of Nero as a boy, in the collection of the Louvre, shows how his image was part of the public display of power from an early age. ‘Nero still wears the bulla, which is this amulet casing that boys wear’, explains Thorsten Opper, curator of ancient Rome at the British Museum. ‘When they take on the toga of manhood, they ritually deposit the bulla in a temple. So we know that this is Nero probably after Claudius married Agrippina, or, more likely, after Nero’s adoption.