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Decadent and Depraved Roman Emperors Who Shocked their Subjects

Khalid Elhassan February 11, 2025 15 min

15. A Depraved Imperial Mom and Son

Nero (37 – 68 AD) was one of history’s oddest rulers. He became emperor as a teenager in 54 AD, and was dominated by his mother, who reportedly controlled him with i-n-c-e-s-t. As described by contemporaries: “whenever he rode in a litter with his mother, he had i-n-c-e-s-t-o-u-s relations with her, which were betrayed by stains in his clothing“. That sheds light on how Nero ended up so depraved. When he tried to assert his independence as he grew older, Nero’s mother refused to give up her power, and continued to meddle in government. So he decided to murder her, and resorted to elaborate means to make it look accidental. Nero’s mom survived each attempted “accidental death”. Exasperated, he finally gave up on subtlety and simply had his henchmen club her to death.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.