Nero · Christwiki

Nero was born at Antium nine months after the death of Tiberius, that is, in December of AD 37 (Suetonius, Nero 6). Claudius adopted him (Suetonius, Nero 6), and he was hailed as emperor at seventeen when Claudius died in 54 (Suetonius, Nero 8). He is the Caesar to whom Paul appealed from the court of Festus (Acts 25:10–12).

Tacitus reports that after the fire of AD 64 Nero fixed the blame on the Christians of Rome and had them killed as a public show (Tacitus, Annals 15.44); Suetonius lists the punishment of the Christians among his measures without mentioning the fire (Suetonius, Nero 16.2). See the Great Fire of Rome and Nero’s Persecution. When Judaea rose in revolt he gave the command against it to Vespasian (Josephus, Jewish War 3.1–7). In 68 the senate declared him a public enemy and he killed himself (Suetonius, Nero 49). Suetonius puts his death in his thirty-second year (Suetonius, Nero 57); Cassius Dio gives him a reign of thirteen years and eight months and calls him the last of the line of Augustus (Cassius Dio, Roman History 63.29.3).

Tertullian, as Eusebius quotes him, called him the first emperor to persecute the Christians. Eusebius, in the early fourth century, records as received tradition that Paul was beheaded and Peter crucified at Rome under him (Eusebius, Church History 2.25.3–5).

In the timeline

The Great Fire of Rome and Nero’s Persecution

Fire destroys much of Rome in July of AD 64. To turn suspicion from himself, the historian Tacitus says, Nero blames the Christians of the city and has them put to death with public cruelty.

The Martyrdoms of Peter and Paul

The New Testament does not tell how Peter and Paul died. A letter from Rome, usually dated about AD 96, says that both suffered and died for their witness; writers from about AD 170 onwards place their deaths at Rome, and later ones under Nero.

Primary sources