from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Nero \Ne"ro\ (n[=e]"r[-o]), prop. n.
A Roman emperor notorious for debauchery and barbarous
cruelty; hence, any profligate and cruel ruler or merciless
tyrant. -- {Ne*ro"ni*an} (n[-e]*r[=o]"n[i^]*an), a.
[1913 Webster] Nero (originally Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus,
later Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus). Born at
Antium, Italy, Dec. 15, 37 a. d.: committed suicide near
Rome, June 9, 68. Roman emperor 54-68, son of Domitius
Ahenobarbus and Agrippina (daughter of Germanicus).
He was adopted by his stepfather, the emperor Claudius, in
50, and in 53 married Octavia, the daughter of Claudius by
Messalina. In 54 Claudius was poisoned by Agrippina, who
caused her son to be proclaimed to the exclusion of
Britannicus, the son of Claudius. His former tutors, the
philosopher Seneca and Burrus, commander of the pretorian
guards, were placed at the head of the government, and the
early years of his reign were marked, on the whole, by
clemency and justice. He caused his rival Britannicus to be
removed by poison in 55. In 59 he procured the assassination
of his mother, of whose control he had become impatient.
Burrus died in 62, whereupon Seneca retired from public life.
Freed from the restraint of his former advisers, he gave free
rein to a naturally tyrannical and cruel disposition. He
divorced Octavia in order to marry Poppaea, and shortly
afterward put Octavia to death (62). Poppaea ultimately died
from the effects of a kick administered by her brutal
husband. Having been accused of kindling the fire which in 64
destroyed a large part of Rome, he sought to divert attention
from himself by ordering a persecution of the Christians,
whom he accused of having caused the Conflagration. He put
Seneca to death in 65, and 66-68 visited Greece, where he
competed for the prizes as a musician and charioteer in the
religious festivals. He was overthrown by a revolt under
Galba, and stabbed himself to death with the assistance of
his secretary.
But the imperial Reign of Terror was limited to a
comparatively small number of families in Rome. The provinces
ware undoubtedly better governed than in the later days of
the Republic, and even in Rome itself the common people
strewed flowers on the grave of Nero.
--Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, I. 6.
[Century Dict. 1906]
from
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
Nero
occurs only in the superscription (which is probably spurious,
and is altogether omitted in the R.V.) to the Second Epistle to
Timothy. He became emperor of Rome when he was about seventeen
years of age (A.D. 54), and soon began to exhibit the character
of a cruel tyrant and heathen debauchee. In May A.D. 64, a
terrible conflagration broke out in Rome, which raged for six
days and seven nights, and totally destroyed a great part of the
city. The guilt of this fire was attached to him at the time,
and the general verdict of history accuses him of the crime.
"Hence, to suppress the rumour," says Tacitus (Annals, xv. 44),
"he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished with the most
exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who
are hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that
name, was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate,
procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius; but the
pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again,
not only throughout Judea, where the mischief originated, but
through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and
disgraceful flow, from all quarters, as to a common receptacle,
and where they are encouraged. Accordingly, first three were
seized, who confessed they were Christians. Next, on their
information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the
charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. And in
their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport; for they
were covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to death
by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and, when day
declined, burned to serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his
own gardens for that spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game,
indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the habit of
a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot; whence a feeling
of compassion arose toward the sufferers, though guilty and
deserving to be made examples of by capital punishment, because
they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but victims
to the ferocity of one man." Another Roman historian, Suetonius
(Nero, xvi.), says of him: "He likewise inflicted punishments on
the Christians, a sort of people who hold a new and impious
superstition" (Forbes's Footsteps of St. Paul, p. 60).
Nero was the emperor before whom Paul was brought on his first
imprisonment at Rome, and the apostle is supposed to have
suffered martyrdom during this persecution. He is repeatedly
alluded to in Scripture (Acts 25:11; Phil. 1:12, 13; 4:22). He
died A.D. 68.