The Posthumous Reign of Nero

There are some historical figures - from Jesus to Michael Jackson - that just won't die. Indeed, many of history's greatest men, particularly those who died young, are surrounded by legends of their surviving in hiding or under an alias.

So it was with Nero, last of the Julio-Claudians and one of the most infamous Roman emperors.

'Real' history tells us that Nero died in June of 68 CE. Having been outlawed by the Senate in favor of the usurper Sulpicius Galba, Nero fled Rome accompanied by a single freedman. When he realized that a wing of Praetorian cavalry was bearing down on him, with orders from the Senate to execute him, Nero took his own life with a dagger. A 'drama-whore' to the last, he died exclaiming 'what an artist the world loses in me!'

Nero was hated by the senators, but he had a cult following amongst the urban mob. Exactly why this came to be is unknown, but he clearly wasn't a monster towards everyone. Galba refused to give his disgraced predecessor a state funeral, and had his body buried at the old Domitian family crypt (rather than the Mausoleum of Augustus with the other Caesars). The secrecy surrounding the treatment of Nero's corpse, while unsurprising given the circumstances surrounding his demise, encouraged rumors that he had only gone into hiding.

The death of Nero was exploited not only by rabble-rousers and conspiracy theorists, however, but also by at least three imposters. The first arose in Achaea in the fall of 68 CE, almost immediately after word of Nero's death had reached the province he had loved the most. Nothing is known of this first False-Nero except that he was of servile origins.

The False-Nero established himself as a pirate captain with his base on the island of Kynthos. He plagued Greek shipping, recruiting slaves into his hodge-podge 'army' while telling grand stories of his intentions to build an army and overthrow Galba. When Galba finally got word of this, he dispatched the general Calpurnius Asprenas to Kynthos. Shortly after Asprena's arrival, the imposter's disembodied head was sent on a tour of the Hellenistic provinces to assure the people that - one way or another - Nero was in fact dead.

The second 'False-Nero' arose a decade later, during the short reign of Titus (79-81). He was a Roman citizen but of 'Asiatic' birth, his name being Terentius Maximus. Circumstances are unclear, but he apparently tried to amass an army in Asia minor before fleeing to the Parthian court, where he enjoyed sympathy for a while before his true identity was discovered - his execution following promptly. This imposter supposedly resembled Nero closely in physical appearance, and rounded off his imitation by singing and playing the lyre.

The Terentius Maximus case played out again during the reign of Titus' brother Domitian (81-96), when a 'False-Nero' again became the favorite of a Parthian king and nearly provoked a war before being executed. This figure was more mysterious than the first two.

The survival of Nero (or the miraclous return) was a long-lived myth, still being spread as late as the 5th Century. His persecution of Christianity as well as his love of pre-Christian Greek culture made him a figure of cultic, even apocalyptic, relevance to many inhabitants of the Empire, if for radically varying reasons.