(Claudius Domitius Caesar), a celebrated Roman emperor, son of Caius Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the daughter of Germanicus. He was adopted by the emperor Claudius, A.D. 50, and four years after he succeeded to him on the throne. In the beginning of his reign he showed several marks of the greatest kindness and condescension, affability, complaisance, and popularity. The object of his administration seemed to be the good of his people; and when he was desired to sign his name to a list of malefactors that were to be executed, he exclaimed, Would to heaven I could not write! He hated flattery; and when the senate had liberally commended the wisdom of his government, he desired them to keep their praises till he deserved them. These promising virtues soon, however, proved to be artificial: Nero soon displayed the real propensities of his nature. He delivered himself from the sway of his mother, and at last ordered her to be murdered. This unnatural act of barbarity might astonish some, but Nero had his devoted adherents; and when he declared that he had taken away his mother's life to save himself from ruin, the senate applauded his measures, and the people signified their approbation. Many of his courtiers shared her unhappy fate; and Nero sacrificed to his fury or caprice all such as obstructed his pleasure or diverted his inclination. In the night he generally went from his palace to visit the meanest taverns, and all the scenes of debauchery which Rome contained. In this nocturnal riot he was fond of insulting the people in the streets; and his attempts to offer violence to the wife of a Roman senator nearly cost him his life. He also turned actor, and openly appeared on the Roman stage in the meanest characters. In his attempts to excel in music, and to conquer the disadvantages of a harsh disagreeable voice, he moderated his meals, and often passed the day without eating. The Olympic games attracted his notice: he went into Greece, and presented himself a candidate for the public honour. He was defeated in wrestling; but the flattery of the spectators adjudged him the victory, and he returned to Rome with all the pomp and splendor of an eastern conqueror, drawn in the chariot of Augustus, and attended by a band of musicians, actors, and stage-dancers from every part of the empire. These private and public amusements of the emperor were indeed innocent; his character only was injured, and not the lives of the people. His conduct, however, soon became more abominable: he disguised himself in the habit of a woman, and was publicly married to one of his eunuchs. This violence to nature and decency was soon exchanged for another: Nero refused his sex, and celebrated his nuptials with one of his meanest catamites: and it was on this occasion that one of the Romans observed that the world would have been happy if Nero's father had had such a wife. But his cruelty was now displayed in a still higher degree, for he sacrificed to his wantonness his wife Octavia Poppaea, and the celebrated writers, Seneca, Lucan, Petronius, &c. Nor did the Christians escape his barbarity. He had heard of the burning of Troy; and as he wished to renew that dismal scene, he caused Rome to be set on fire in different places. The conflagration became soon universal, and during nine successive days the fire continued. All was desolation: nothing was heard but the lamentations of mothers whose whose children had perished in the flames, the groans of the dying, and the continual fall of palaces and buildings. Nero was the only one who enjoyed the general conflagration. He placed himself on the top of a high tower, and he sang on his lyre the destruction of Troy, a dreadful scene which his barbarity had realized before his eyes. He attempted to avert the public odium from his head by a pretended commiseration of the miseries of his subjects. He began to repair the streets and the public buildings at his own expense. He built himself a splendid palace, which he called his golden house. It was liberally adorned with gold, with precious stones, and with everything rare and exquisite. It contained spacious fields, artificial lakes, woods, gardens, orchards, and whatever exhibited a beautiful scene. The entrance of this edifice could admit a large colossus of the emperor 120 feet high; the galleries were each a mile long, and the whole was covered with gold. The roofs of the dining halls represented the firmament, in motion as well as in figure; and continually turned round night and day, showering down all sorts of perfumes and sweet waters. When this grand edifice, which, according to Pliny, extended all round the city, was finished, Nero said, that now he could lodge like a man. His profusion was not less remarkable in all his other actions. When he went fishing, his nets were of gold and silk. He never appeared twice in the same garment; and when he took a voyage, there were thousands of servants to take care of his wardrobe. This continuation of debauchery and extravagance at last ruined the people. Many conspiracies were formed against him; but they were generally discovered, and such as were effectually suffered the severest punishments. The most dangerous conspiracy against Nero's life was that of Piso, from which he was saved by the confession of a slave. The conspiracy of Galba proved more successful, who, when he was informed that his plot was known to Nero, declared himself emperor. The unpopularity of Nero favoured his cause; he was acknowledged by all the Roman empire, and the senate condemned the tyrant to be dragged naked through the streets of Rome, and whipped to death, and afterwards to be thrown down from the Tarpeian rock like the meanest malefactor. This, however, was not executed; for Nero prevented it by a voluntary death. He killed himself, A.D. 68, in the 34th year of his age, after a reign of 13 years and eight months. Rome was filled with acclamations at it; and the citizens, more strongly to indicate their joy, wore caps, such as were generally used by slaves who had received their freedom. Their vengeance was not only exercised against the statues of the deceased monster, but many of his friends were the object of the public resentment; and many were crushed to pieces in such a violent manner, that one of the senators, amid the universal joy, said that he was afraid they should soon have cause to wish for Nero. The tyrant, as he expired, requested that his head might not be cut off from his body, and exposed to the insolence of the populace; but that the whole might be burned on the funeral pile. His request was granted by one of Galba's freedmen, and his obsequies were performed with the usual ceremonies. Though his death seemed to be the source of general gladness, yet many of his favourites lamented his fall, and were grieved to see that their pleasures and amusements were stopped by the death of this patron of debauchery and extravagance. Even the king of Parthia sent ambassadors to Rome, to console with the Romans, and to beg that they would honour and revere the memory of Nero. His statues were also crowned with garlands of flowers; and many imagined that he was not dead, but that he would soon make his appearance and take vengeance on his enemies. It will be sufficient to observe, in finishing the character of this tyrannical monster, that the name of Nero is even now used emphatically to express a barbarous and unfeeling oppressor. Pliny calls him the common enemy and fury of mankind; and so indeed he has been called by all writers, who exhibit Nero as a pattern of the most execrable barbarity and unpardonable wantonness. The same Pliny furnishes us with this singular anecdote of him: "Nero had ordered himself to be painted under the figure of a colossus, upon cloth or canvas, 120 feet in height." He adds, "that this preposterous picture, when it was finished, met with its fate from lightning, which consumed it, and involved likewise the most beautiful part of the gardens where it was placed in the conflagration."