The Quinquennium Neronis - 'nevertheless was so outstanding for five years especially in enhancing the city, that Trajan quite justifiably asserted that all emperors fell far short in his [first] five years. Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, 5.1.
@@TheSPQRHistorian I agree. If there was any emperor to have mummy issues it was Nero. In addition, with his other advices like Seneca eventually retiring and Nero being left on his own he just was not ruler material. His feud with his mother was definitely damaging but also being very young and with no previous experience, unlike all of his predocessors (even Caligula to a small extent) had more exposure to rule than Nero. However, this excellent video by Dominic Rathbone goes through some of the positive elements of his reign ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-n7qyfQKIt3c.html
🎶To me, you all score zero My name is Emperor Nero Evil men you’re not I’m the worstest of the lot! (Whoo!) My rule was full of fear-o Yes, men from far & near-o Called me a fighting hero Or I would have them slayed! Changed the Olympic season So the medals went to me, son Burned Christians for no reason Just a fun game I played, you know Poisoned my stepbrother Ordered men to kill my mother Tried to drown her but she fled So I had her stabbed instead Wait! There’s more! With my first wife, dear Octavia I showed truly bad behavior Chopped her head off, gave it to My girlfriend who I then killed too I’m bad! So baddy! Of badness, I’m the daddy! Come on, I want to see A more evil bloke than me!🎶
I absolutely love that we know All these details/ little gems of history. Wonder what we would know if the sackings of Rome never had occurred. So much information was lost.
It's interesting watching these older videos; they are basically just an abridged version of Tacitus' The Annals. They are good, but I think the quality has come up quite a bit over the last 4 years. Any thoughts on redoing the Julio-Claudian & maybe Flavian dynasty in the modern more nuanced style? Either way, love the channel & what is being done.
Thanks, Byzantanium! I do agree that I need to improve the audio and I'm looking to get a new mic for the next video. While I do appreciate your willingness to pledge, I won't set up a patreon right now ;)
Hmm Interesting video, but doesn’t add anything new to what was already said about Nero. I wonder what you think of the new view that scholars are taking about Nero the past years (which puts him in a more favourable light, and that his bad reputation was mainly due to the fact that the Flavian dynasty used him as a scapegoat to justify their power), like, for example, expressed by professor John Drinkwater’s “Nero: Emperor and Court”.
Wait a minute, You said he fancied the wife of his friend Otho, but I learnt that he told Otho to take Poppea as a wife for safekeeping purposes so that Nero himself could later marry her.
Yeah his whole "Christians might have done it because fire and brimstone and all that" made no sense and felt like a reach. It's obvious that the damage was more due to inept fire control either due to poor building structure, lack of competent fire fighters (or whatever the Romans called them) or the fact the city had grown too large and stayed too wooden for most of it's buildings to the point it was inevitable to happen.
I have to commend you for improving so much over the course of this series. Your early videos like this are so poorly enunciated that I struggle sometimes to understand you...but the later ones that brought me to the series - I think the first were Aurelian and Gallienus - I don't recall having any such issue.
Well how was it not extreme in comparison to the Roman world view? For you to object to that, you have to believe there are truly such a thing as "extremists" to begin with. Which'd only seem like you're brainwashed by the modern world.
I agree. I'm considering redoing my video on the Julio-Claudian dynasty. They deserve deeper coverage, especially since we have decent sources during that period.
@@TheSPQRHistorianthanks for the response! My fave story about the pair, is how Petronius had his prized, priceless carved wine dipper broken in two, rather than let Nero have it after his suicide.
so ends the Julio Claudius dynasty an interesting assortment if nothing else and 3 out of 5 emperors being decent to excellent is not bad I wonder how caesar would view his line
Sorry, historian here - why are you using a current map of Europe? The Benelux (or Geographic Netherlands, or Gallia Belgica and Germania Inferior combined, if you like) are looking as they've had been since 1970 AD, not 1900 years before that...
Nero was great ! He'd dress as a common man and hide in the crowd at the gladiator games. When someone in the crowd would ridicule the bravery of any of the gladiators, he'd have the Pretorian throw that man in the arena to fight. Lol. Then he burned the Christians after they started the fire in Rome and thus their flames lite up his garden. Ahahaha hail Nero !!!
You sure that's how it went ? The Parthians won at the battle of Rhandeia and inflicted a heavy defeat on the Romans (the numbers are debatable but it's said that a force of 10,000 Parthians and Armenians defeated a Roman army of 35,000) Even made Romans pass under their spears, which was the most humiliating thing for Roman legions They also won at the battle of Urumia 36 BC You sure Romans weren't the ones who had to come to Armenia ?
thing is tho, Nero is a competent emperor, we just dont think he is due to both the Christians and Senate fucking despising him (for valid reasons, considering he had no love for them either) and they are the ones who wrote the history. It's taken a long time for historians to piece together what his reign was more like. He was not great not bad, but he was competent. As a person tho...yeah, not good.
Congrats the guy who made this video. You have decided to join yourself to the murders who set innocent people on fire to light the streets. BTW the way your videos are terrible. The very recent ones are different and fairly good
I quote from the above narration "Nero's new advisers realised Nero loved the attention of the people and their applause, their own power was linked to their ability to provide those applause." Yeah sounds exactly like Trump. Trump is the Evil tyrant Nero reincarnated.
Oh shut the hell up you obnoxious twat. You people elected a senile neanderthal who has done more damage to this country economically and agriculturally than any President prior whereas we were saving money and barely paying half the price of gas under Trump compared to where we are now. Your vapid old boomer has literally got the elites and the MSM hopping on his nuts defending every error he slurs out of his mouth and every garbage law and order he signs into office, and yet you want to pretend Trump was the Tyrant. Pathetic drones.
Man you TDS bots must have been bored with shilling yourselves on Twatter that you had to come here just to spam your off topic seething over a dude who has long been out of office already.