Nero

Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar),
Roman emperor AD 54–68, was born 15 December 37 of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul AD 32) and Agrippina.

To strengthen his doubtful claim to the throne, stories had been spread of his miraculous childhood (Suetonius Nero 6; Tacitus Annales 11. 11) and stress laid on his descent from the divine Augustus. In 49 his mother, as Claudius' new wife, was able to have the younger Seneca recalled from exile in order to teach her son rhetoric and to secure his betrothal to Claudius' daughter Octavia; in 50 Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus was adopted by Claudius, thus becoming Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar or, as he is sometimes called, Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus. In the next year he assumed the toga virilis (dress indicating manhood) at the early age of 13 and was clearly marked out for the accession by being...

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