Please enter your number below. This illusion was shattered when, in October AD 54, Agrippina murdered her husband with a poisoned mushroom and declared her 16-year-old son, under the name Nero, as emperor in his place. Both their faces are depicted on coinage, and in several they face one another, their heads of equal size and equal importance. Women were unable to vote during the Republic and legally unable to even enter the Senate house at any time. chosen. Unlike the wives of emperors before and after her, she was, in all ways, her husband’s partner in rule. However, the legal and cultural taboos against women in politics and the military never weakened. Augustus� family line ended in disgrace in 68 A.D. with the Emperor Nero, who But are any of these stories that feed our popular conception of the emperor Nero actually true? Images Women who tried to engage in political life were universally reviled throughout Roman history as monsters. In AD 59, Nero lost patience with hearing his mother’s voice. bare the blame for the fire, the Christians. ruled the Roman Empire. The youngest son Gaius survived the executions that claimed his mother and brothers, so inherited the empire from Tiberius in AD 37, before he was 25. Maps & Geography • Acte was not the breaking point - it was the moment Agrippina began to threaten to remove Nero from the throne. However, when his main advisors had either retired, or were dead, Nero revealed He was overthrown in AD 68 after several generals revolted against him. It seemed that the two would have a long reign and a peaceful succession. of Rome, from 54-68 A.D. under the political system created by Augustus after (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Introduction avoid the same problems with the Roman Senate. If we examine our historical accounts closely, the only evidence for Nero the arsonist comes from rumour and hearsay. Everyone thought that Nero had started the fire so that he could rebuild a The Our best wishes for a productive day. Then Agrippina burst into public life in a manner that shocked and horrified Rome: she married Claudius, her own uncle. But during her lifetime, Julia Agrippina, more commonly known as Agrippina the Younger, made unique and extraordinary inroads into the spaces of Roman political and social power, to the extent that she ruled for several years as her husband’s equal in power. When Augustus died in 14 A.D. Tiberius was easily Yet within months, Nero began to attempt to enforce more traditional gender roles in the palace. There is a story told by Suetonius that when a man said to Nero, ‘When I am dead, let the earth be consumed by fire’, the emperor replied, ‘No, while I live!’.