This first attempt failed, with his mother swimming to shore. Nero, not trusting his Praetorian Guard to carry out the killing, ordered naval troops to sink a boat that she would be sailing on. “This was a crime that will have caused revulsion in the Roman world, for the mother was that most sacred of icons within the Roman family,” writes David Shotter, a professor of history at Lancaster University, in his book. Whatever the reasons, Nero knew that he was making a decision that could come back to haunt him. 59 was that she was plotting to kill him.
Officially, the reason given for Nero’s orders to kill his own mom in A.D. 55, and she appears to have lost power in favor of Nero’s top advisers, Seneca and Burrus, the commander of the Praetorian Guard who advised him on military affairs. Her face stopped appearing on Roman coins after A.D. Nero and his mother appear to have had a falling out within about two years of his becoming emperor. 155-235 (translation from the book "Nero Caesar Augustus: Emperor of Rome" by David Shotter, Pearson, 2008). She “managed for him all the business of the empire … she received embassies and sent letter to various communities, governors and kings …” wrote Cassius Dio who lived A.D. In the first two years of Nero’s reign, his coins depicted him side by side with his mother, Agrippina. 54 (possibly by being poisoned with a mushroom), Nero, with the support of the Praetorian Guard and at the age of 17, became emperor. The newly adopted son would later take the hand of his stepsister, Octavia, in marriage, and become Claudius’ heir apparent, the emperor choosing him over his own biological son, Britannicus (who died shortly after Nero became emperor).Īfter the death of Claudius in A.D. 49, and she saw to it that he adopted her son, giving him a new name that started with “Nero.” His tutors included the famous philosopher Seneca, a man who would continue advising Nero into his reign, even writing the proclamation explaining why Nero killed his mother. His ambitious mother would go on to marry Claudius (who was also her uncle) in A.D. 41, and the ascension of Emperor Claudius shortly afterward, mother and son were reunited.
His name at birth was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus.Īfter the murder of Caligula in January A.D. His father, a former Roman consul, died when he was about 3 years old, and his mother was banished by the Emperor Caligula, leaving him in the care of an aunt. 37, to his mother, Agrippina the Younger, and his father, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus. Nero was born in Antium, in Italy, on Dec.