Nero: The End of a Dynasty [Hardcover]

Miriam Griffin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1985

Drawing on insights from other European curricular systems, this provocative book will contribute, in a timely way, to the debate on reformations of the National Curriculum. The text includes points for discussion and lists of further reading.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A vain, suspicious, vindictive man, the Roman Emperor Nero admitted by the end of his reign that he had failed completely. PW concluded: "Griffin's excellent biographical history is both perceptive and evenhanded."
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'Nero is likely to find a wide readership, and deservedly so, since the author has taken care to make her exposition accessible to the layman.' - A. Wallace-Hadrill, Times Literary Supplement --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Yale Univ Pr; First edition. edition (February 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300032854
• ISBN-13: 978-0300032857
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,695,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Public Enemy, December 30, 2001

By 

"voychek" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nero: The End of a Dynasty (Paperback)

If you thought Caligula was the last word in Caeserian depravity, you must check out the life and times of Nero, the last of the Julio-Claudian emperors. And Ms. Griffin's splendid biography is an excellent place to begin. She's both a classically trained (Oxford, Harvard, Columbia) historian and a gifted writer,

Thus, this biography is both scholarly and fascinating in a grisly rise and fall of an ancient psychopath sort of way. What follows is just a partial list of Nero's major crimes: matricide, parricide, fratricide, uxoricide, foeticide, homicide, suicide and maybe arson. Ironically, arson for which his name is historically synonymous, is the one felony for which hard evidence is lacking. However, he probably did play the lyre (not the fiddle) while Rome burned to the ground. Nero was absolutely devoted to the arts.

Ms. Griffin, like all good historians, has her own educated slant on Nero, but uses the primary sources--Roman historian Tacitus, Roman biographer Suetonius (The Twelve Caesars) and Greek historian, Cassius Dio--extremely well: she doesn't agree completely with any of them. My own favorite among this group is Suetonious. He's gossipy, entertaining, highly opinated and sometimes accused of not always being totally reliable because he was writing not too long after Nero's death and his sources were, for the most part, then current word of mouth:

"Besides abusing freeborn boys and seducing married women, he debauched the vestal virgin Rubria. The freedwoman Acte he all but made his lawful wife, after bribing some ex-consuls to perjure themselves by swearing that she was of royal birth. 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 home attended by a great throng, and treated him as his wife."

Abusing boys, seducing women, debauching vestal virgins, bribing public officials, castrating and then marrying a boy. And that's just a small sampling of Nero's criminally insane imperial career. He also enjoyed slipping out of the palace in disguise of an evening and robbing and beating (sometimes to death) ordinary citizens. Sometimes he donned the skins of wild beasts and tortured male and female prisoners who had been tied naked to stakes. He kicked his pregnant second wife, Poppea, to death. For reasons known only to himself, he demanded that his tutor and chief advisor, the distinguished and blameless stoic philospher Seneca, commit suicide. And there were some exceedingly dark suspicions about the true nature of the relationship between him and his mother, the notoriously manipulative Agrippina. Optima Mater (Best of Mothers) was the first Praetorian guard watchword of Nero's reign. Eventually, they had a serious falling out which ended very badly for Agrippina.

Nero's reign lasted from his seventeenth year to his thirty-first. By then he had been pronounced a public enemy by the long-suffering Senate. They planned to punish him in the ancient fashion: the criminal was stripped, fastened by the neck in a fork [two pieces of wood, fastened together in the form of a "V"], and then beaten to death with rods. On hearing that ghastly sentence Nero, who had fled from Rome to hide in a country manor, wept and wailed for a long time about how the world was losing "a great artist." Finally, as the posse charged with bringing him in approached, and with the help of his private secretary, he managed to stab himself in the throat. His bugged-eyed corpse horrified everyone who saw it.

Nero's three immediate successors were Galba, Otho and Vitellius. All had brief, insignificant reigns. And all were brutally slain within months of assuming the imperial throne. Sic transit gloria mundi.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A balanced account, January 9, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Nero: The End of a Dynasty (Paperback)

A rather dry, scholarly account of Nero's reign (not quite biographical, but with some like elements). Obviously, this isn't a completely entertaining book, and if you're looking for a more "novelistic" account of the popular image of Nero, there are plenty of books that indulge in that excess. This is the finest resource on Nero that I know of : a complete, belated modern analysis. Griffin presents upfront the remaining contemporary accounts of Nero (Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio) and other evidence, especially coinage, to piece together the reign of Nero, debating it point-by-point to find the most likely of occurances. Many myths of Nero are dealt with in this probing, even-handed professional history that, I believe, paints a pretty convincing picture of his personality and politics.

If you love Roman history, this deserves to be in your library.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Why musicians shouldn't rule, September 21, 2004

By 

Kuru (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nero: The End of a Dynasty (Paperback)

This is less a biography than a scholarly exploration of specific aspects of Nero's reign, with a specific focus on assessing the relative credibility of Suetonius, Dio and Tacitus, and exploring the numismatic evidence. The book assumes pre-existing knowledge of Roman political and social structure as well as the general historical period being covered. Nero comes across as a surprisingly cultured and literate young man who was ultimately ruined by his emotional volatility and the temptations offered by absolute power.