Suetonius, Cassius Dio, and Tacitus are our three best sources for the time of Nero. Suetonius and Cassio Dio are in agreement that the latter part Nero’s reign was an utter disaster, summarizing it with the following quotations:
It might have been possible to excuse his insolent, lustful, extravagant, greedy or cruel practices (which were furtive and increased only gradually), by saying that boys will be boys; yet at the same time, this was clearly the true Nero, not merely Nero in his adolescence.
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Nero had the wish – or rather it had always been a fixed purpose of his – to make an end of the whole city in his lifetime.
Ultimately, the verdict is that Nero’s bad days have not been left out by our sources because these tyrannical actions were who Nero always was and would be, before and during his reign. Conversely, Tacitus blatantly disagrees with Suetonius and Dio’s historical accounts: “The histories of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, and after their death were written under the irritation of a recent hatred.” While the foundational legitimacy of Tacitus’ claim is still
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Between revolts in Gaul under Gaius Julius Vindex, and Servius Sulpicius Galba’s revolt in Spain, Nero’s authority was not looking particularly strong. With regards to the Gallic revolt, Nero ignored the situation for a little over a week. This character flaw of Nero’s – the fact that as an emperor he would willingly overlook a revolt – is what has resonated with our sources. Perhaps it was Nero’s inability to lead his forces both from away from Rome and present there that caused his people to not want to join the Roman troops – Nero quite literally had to enlist slaves in the army. Moreover, Nero had little to no desire to expand the Empire, a desire and drive which most emperors had. This causes Nero to stand out and not in a good