The Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( NEER-oh; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his death in AD 68. He was adopted by the Roman emperor Claudius at the age of 13 and succeeded him on the throne. Nero was popular with the members of his Praetorian Guard and lower-class commoners in Rome and its provinces, but he was deeply resented by the Roman aristocracy. Most contemporary sources describe him as tyrannical, self-indulgent, and debauched. After being declared a public enemy by the Roman Senate, he committed suicide at age 30.
Nero was born at Antium in AD 37, the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the Younger, a great-granddaughter of the emperor Augustus. When Nero was two years old, his father died. His mother married the emperor Claudius, who eventually adopted Nero as his heir; when Claudius died in 54, Nero became emperor with the support of the Praetorian Guard and the Senate. In the early years of his reign Nero was advised and guided by his mother Agrippina, his tutor Seneca the Younger, and his praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, but he soon sought to rule independently and to rid himself of restraining influences. His power struggle with his mother was eventually resolved when he had her murdered. Roman sources also implicate Nero in the deaths of his wife Claudia Octavia supposedly so that he could marry Poppaea Sabina and of his foster-brother Britannicus.
Nero's practical contributions to Rome's governance focused on diplomacy, trade, and culture. He ordered the construction of amphitheaters, promoted athletic games and contests, and made public appearances as an actor, poet, musician, and charioteer. This scandalised his aristocratic contemporaries as these occupations were usually the domain of slaves, public entertainers and infamous persons. The provision of such entertainments made Nero popular among lower-class citizens, but his performances undermined the Imperial dignity. The costs involved were borne by local elites either directly or through taxation, and were much resented.
During Nero's reign, the general Corbulo fought the RomanParthian War of 5863, and made peace with the hostile Parthian Empire. The Roman general Suetonius Paulinus quashed a major revolt in Britain led by the Iceni's queen Boudica. The Bosporan Kingdom was briefly annexed to the empire, and the First JewishRoman War began. When the Roman senator Vindex rebelled, with support from the eventual Roman emperor Galba, Nero was declared a public enemy and condemned to death in absentia. He fled Rome, and on 9 June AD 68 he committed suicide. His death sparked a brief period of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors.
Most Roman sources offer overwhelmingly negative assessments of his personality and reign. The historian Tacitus claims the Roman people thought him compulsive and corrupt. Suetonius tells that many Romans believed that the Great Fire of Rome was instigated by Nero to clear land for his planned "Golden House". Tacitus claims that Nero seized Christians as scapegoats for the fire and had them burned alive, seemingly motivated not by public justice but by personal cruelty. Some modern historians question the reliability of the ancient sources on Nero's tyrannical acts, considering his popularity among the Roman commoners. In the eastern provinces of the Empire, a popular legend arose that Nero had not died and would return. After his death, at least three leaders of short-lived, failed rebellions presented themselves as "Nero reborn" in order to gain popular support.
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman Empire during the imperial period (starting with the granting of the title augustus to Octavian in 27 BC). The emperors used a variety of different titles throughout history. Often when a given Roman is described as becoming "emperor" in English it reflects his taking of the title augustus (and later basileus). Another title often used was caesar, used for heirs-apparent, and imperator, originally a military honorific. Early emperors also used the title princeps civitatis ('first citizen'). Emperors frequently amassed republican titles, notably princeps senatus, consul, and pontifex maximus.
The legitimacy of an emperor's rule depended on his control of the army and recognition by the Senate; an emperor would normally be proclaimed by his troops, or invested with imperial titles by the Senate, or both. The first emperors reigned alone; later emperors would sometimes rule with co-emperors and divide administration of the empire between them.
The Romans considered the office of emperor to be distinct from that of a king. The first emperor, Augustus, resolutely refused recognition as a monarch. For the first three hundred years of Roman emperors, from Augustus until Diocletian, efforts were made to portray the emperors as leaders of the republic, fearing any association with the kings of Rome prior to the Republic.
From Diocletian, whose tetrarchic reforms also divided the position into one emperor in the West and one in the East, until the end of the Empire, emperors ruled in an openly monarchic style and did not preserve the nominal principle of a republic, but the contrast with "kings" was maintained: although the imperial succession was generally hereditary, it was only hereditary if there was a suitable candidate acceptable to the army and the bureaucracy, so the principle of automatic inheritance was not adopted. Elements of the republican institutional framework (senate, consuls, and magistrates) were preserved even after the end of the Western Empire.
The reign of Constantine the Great witnessed the removal of the Caput Mundi from Rome to Constantinople, formerly known as Byzantium, in 330 AD. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century after multiple invasions of imperial territory by Germanic barbarian tribes. Romulus Augustulus is often considered to have been the last emperor of the West, until his forced abdication in 476, although Julius Nepos maintained a claim recognized by the Eastern Empire to the title until his death in 480. Following Nepos' death, the Eastern emperor Zeno abolished the division of the position and proclaimed himself as the sole emperor of a reunited Roman Empire. The subsequent Eastern emperors ruling from Constantinople continued to style themselves "Emperor of the Romans" (later βασιλεύς Ῥωμαίων in Greek), but are often referred to in modern scholarship as Byzantine emperors. Constantine XI Palaiologos was the last Roman emperor in Constantinople, dying during the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453.
The "Byzantine" emperors from Heraclius in 629 and onwards adopted the monarchic title of basileus (βασιλεύς), which became a title reserved solely for the Roman emperor and the ruler of the Sasanian Empire. Other rulers were then referred to as rēgas.In addition to their pontifical office, some emperors were given divine status after death. With the eventual hegemony of Christianity, the emperor came to be seen as God's chosen ruler, as well as a special protector and leader of the Christian Church on Earth, although in practice an emperor's authority on Church matters was subject to challenge.
Due to the cultural rupture of the Turkish conquest, most western historians treat Constantine XI as the last meaningful claimant to the title Roman emperor. From 1453, one of the titles used by the Ottoman Sultans was "Caesar of Rome" (Turkish: Kayser-i Rum), part of their titles until the Ottoman Empire ended in 1922. A Byzantine group of claimant Roman emperors existed in the Empire of Trebizond until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1461, though they had used a modified title since 1282.
Eastern emperors in Constantinople had been recognized and accepted as Roman emperors both in the East, which they ruled, and by the papacy and Germanic kingdoms of the West until the deposition of Constantine VI and accession of Irene of Athens as Empress regnant in 797. Objecting to a woman ruling the Roman Empire in her own right and issues with the eastern clergy, the Papacy would then create a rival lineage of Roman emperors in western Europe, the Holy Roman Emperors, which ruled the Holy Roman Empire for most of the period between 800 and 1806. These emperors were never recognized as Roman emperors by the court in Constantinople and their coronations resulted in the medieval problem of two emperors.