You Would Not Want To Be Nero’s Mother Or Lover
At some point, Nero fell in love with a youth name Sporus, and married him in a public ceremony intended to shock: “He castrated the boy Sporus and actually tried to make a woman of him; and he married him with all the usual ceremonies, including a dowry and a bridal veil, took him to his house attended by a great throng, and treated him as his wife.” Nero put a lot of thought into his perversions, and liked to organize and preplan them. So much that he set up conjugal rest stops in advance of his vacation routes. As described by contemporaries: “Whenever he drifted down the Tiber to Ostia, or sailed about the Gulf of Baiae, booths were set up at intervals along the banks and shores, fitted out for debauchery, while bartering matrons played the part of inn-keepers and from every hand solicited him to come ashore“.
Nero dedicated himself to pleasure, and spent lavishly to gratify his desires. In the meantime, he neglected the Roman Empire and entrusted its governance to corrupt subordinates, who wrecked it. Finally, in 68 AD, various generals and provincial governors rebelled, the Senate declared Nero a public enemy, and his Praetorian Guard abandoned him. Nero contemplated throwing himself upon the public’s mercy and begging forgiveness. He changed his mind when informed that he would probably be torn apart by the first mob that came across him. So he had had a freedman stab him to death, and cried out with his last breath: “Oh, what an artist dies in me!“
