The presence of Pseudo-Neros in the years and decades after the actual Nero’s death is a puzzling matter. At least three men (though Tacitus suggests there were much more) claimed to be the late emperor, then proceeded to gain support from plebians, military officials, and foreign empires. All of them were reasonably competent leaders, but the primary reason for their albeit limited success was their supposed name. This paper hopes to discover how and why more than one man threatened Rome by taking up the mantle of a dead emperor.
The first necessary question regarding the phenomenon of the false Neros is simply: why Nero? Why was a historically hated emperor that impersonated by multiple men? How did those men manage to garner significant support? The answers to these questions suggest that Neros’ reputation as a detested tyrant is, at the least, a misrepresentation. Nero’s death, compared to that of the prior Julio-Claudians, was …show more content…
While he would have retained a position as a symbol of Roman tyranny against the Jewish people, Nero Redivivus brought him to another level. S.J. Bastomsky relates an apocryphal tale of Nero at the beginning of the war (321) which ties the emperor to Nebuchadnezzar. He further points out a number of parallels between the story and other, broad Talmudic traditions, all of which leads one to conclude that Nero entered the annals of Jewish history and consciousness as an archetypal representative of Roman hatred of Jews. His apparent continual reemergence, and the widespread belief that he would appear again decades after his death, surely contributed to an existing sense of perpetual threat. It could not have helped this societal paranoia to see masses of gentiles in the Near East vigorously supporting the man who represented oppression. Thus, Nero Redivivus decoupled from Nero and became part of the larger, millennia-long pattern of Jewish
The first necessary question regarding the phenomenon of the false Neros is simply: why Nero? Why was a historically hated emperor that impersonated by multiple men? How did those men manage to garner significant support? The answers to these questions suggest that Neros’ reputation as a detested tyrant is, at the least, a misrepresentation. Nero’s death, compared to that of the prior Julio-Claudians, was …show more content…
While he would have retained a position as a symbol of Roman tyranny against the Jewish people, Nero Redivivus brought him to another level. S.J. Bastomsky relates an apocryphal tale of Nero at the beginning of the war (321) which ties the emperor to Nebuchadnezzar. He further points out a number of parallels between the story and other, broad Talmudic traditions, all of which leads one to conclude that Nero entered the annals of Jewish history and consciousness as an archetypal representative of Roman hatred of Jews. His apparent continual reemergence, and the widespread belief that he would appear again decades after his death, surely contributed to an existing sense of perpetual threat. It could not have helped this societal paranoia to see masses of gentiles in the Near East vigorously supporting the man who represented oppression. Thus, Nero Redivivus decoupled from Nero and became part of the larger, millennia-long pattern of Jewish