Who Loved Nero?

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, guys & Ladies!

 

This comes at the end of "Vita Nero" of Suetonius, one of the strongest detractors of this Emperor that there will ever be;

 

"57 He met his death in the thirty-second year of his age, on the anniversary of the murder of Octavia, and such was the public rejoicing that the people put on liberty-caps and ran about all at city. Yet there were some who for a long time decorated his tomb with spring and summer flowers, and now produced his statues on the rostra in the fringed toga, and now his edicts, as if he were still alive and would shortly return and deal destruction to his enemies. Nay more, Vologaesus, king of the Parthians, when he sent envoys to the senate to renew his alliance, earnestly begged this too, that honour be paid to the memory of Nero. In fact, twenty years later, when I was a young man, a person of obscure origin appeared, who gave out that he was Nero, and the name was still in such favour with the Parthians that they supported him vigorously and surrendered him with great reluctance. "

 

and this comes from Josephus, presumably the historian with great chronological proximity with Nero and a client of the Flavian Dynasty:

(Antiquities of the Jews, book XX, Ch. 8, sec. 3)

 

"But I omit any further discourse about these affairs; for there have been a great many who have composed the history of Nero; some of which have departed from the truth of facts out of favor, as having received benefits from him; while others, out of hatred to him, and the great ill-will which they bare him, have so impudently raved against him with their lies, that they justly deserve to be condemned. Nor do I wonder at such as have told lies of Nero, since they have not in their writings preserved the truth of history as to those facts that were earlier than his time, even when the actors could have no way incurred their hatred, since those writers lived a long time after them. "

 

Who loved Nero? What do you think?

[Ingsoc]

It's seem that his death was welcomed by the upper class while his supporters lay in the lower classes of society

 

"The Senators enjoyed the first exercise of freedom with the less restraint, because the Emperor was new to power, and absent from the capital. The leading men of the Equestrian order sympathised most closely with the joy of the Senators. The respectable portion of the people, which was connected with the great families, as well as the dependants and freedmen of condemned and banished persons, were high in hope. The degraded populace, frequenters of the arena and the theatre, the most worthless of the slaves, and those who having wasted their property were supported by the infamous excesses of Nero, caught eagerly in their dejection at every rumour." (Tacitus, Histories I.4)

 

It's also seem he was especially popular in the east.

 

"The fact is, Nero restored the liberties of Hellas with a wisdom and moderation quite alien to his character; and the cities regained their Doric and Attic characteristics, and a general rejuvenescence accompanied the institution among them of a peace and harmony such as not even ancient Hellas ever enjoyed. Vespasian, however, on his arrival in the country took away her liberty, alleging their factiousness with other pretexts hardly justifying such extreme severity." (Philostratus II, The Life of Apollonius 5.41)

 

it's seem that Nero good reputation lasted for a long time, as Augustine of Hippo wrote about it in 422:

 

"Others, again, suppose that he is not even dead, but that he was concealed that he might be supposed to have been killed, and that he now lives in concealment in the vigor of that same age which he had reached when he was believed to have perished, and will live until he is revealed in his own time and restored to his kingdom. But I wonder that men can be so audacious in their conjectures" (Augustine of Hippo, City of God XX.19.3)

Edited July 31, 2007 by Ingsoc

[Kosmo]

The legions and many commoners from the East. Some rebels even claimed to be Nero and gathered a large crowed. A Feuchtwanger book it's about one of this colorful characters. Der falsche Nero (The Pretender), 1936 -- about Terentius Maximus, the "False Nero"

Maybe even the plebs of Rome liked him.

[caldrail]

Nero's reputation as a 'star' lived on. I don't remember the name of the individual, but there was a slave who had a passing resemblance and pretended to be Nero himself. It caused a bit of a stir and a popular uprising had to nipped in the bud, though in the end it was only worth a historical mention.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, guys!

 

Here comes Suetonius' "Vita Otho":

 

"7 Next, as the day was drawing to its close, he entered the senate and after giving a brief account of himself, alleging that he had been carried off in the streets and forced to undertake the rule,... When in the midst of the other adulations of those who congratulated and flattered him, he was hailed by the common herd as Nero, he made no sign of dissent; on the contrary, according to some writers, he even made use of that surname in his commissions and his first letters to some of the governors of the provinces. Certain it is that he suffered Nero's busts and statues to be set up again, and reinstated his procurators and freedmen in their former posts, while the first grant that he signed as emperor was one of fifty million sesterces for finishing the Golden House...

 

10 ... Then going to a retired place he wrote two notes, one of consolation to his sister, and one to Nero's widow Messalina, whom he had intended to marry, commending to her his corpse and his memory. Then he burned all his letters, to prevent them from bringing danger or harm to anyone at the hands of the victor..."

 

Was Nero so popular that the one who depose Nero's deposer pretended to be his legitimate succesor?