How happy are those who do not know how to read or write!
Politicians
Nero
Fifth Roman emperor (AD 37-68) and last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Guided in his first five years by his tutor Seneca and the prefect Burrus, Nero presided over a period the emperor Trajan later praised as the Quinquennium Neronis — fiscal reforms, lenient governance, and respect for the Senate. He then murdered his mother Agrippina, his wife Octavia, his step-brother Britannicus, and forced Seneca to suicide. After the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64 he became the first emperor to systematically persecute Christians, blaming them as scapegoats. Declared a public enemy by the Senate during the Vindex-Galba revolt, he killed himself in AD 68, plunging Rome into the Year of the Four Emperors.
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Nero's Other Quotes
Related Quotes
I found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble.
-- Augustus
The play is over; applaud.
-- Augustus
I came to Russia knowing absolutely nothing.
-- Catherine II of Russia
If the fight had ended fatally for me it would not have been a matter of shame. Death drops the curtain even on emperors; it is no dishonor.
-- Aurangzeb
I swear before you, by the God of my fathers, by my honour and by my country, that I will not rest my arm nor my soul until I have broken the chains that bind us by the will of the Spanish power.
-- Simón Bolívar
Let them hate me, so long as they approve of my conduct.
-- Tiberius