tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post3943398537481267824..comments2024-01-26T21:38:25.924-08:00Comments on Duane's PoeTree: Jake Cosmos Aller writes DuanesPoeTreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-9820765739600646832018-09-06T18:04:12.489-07:002018-09-06T18:04:12.489-07:00Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the l...Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the last Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. His rule is associated with tyranny and extravagance. Most Roman historians offered overwhelmingly negative assessments of his personality and reign. Publius Cornelius Tacitus reported that the Roman people thought him compulsive and corrupt. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, Cassius Dio, and Gaius Plinius Secundus (who called him an "actor-emperor" and an "enemy of mankind") all claimed that he was responsible for the Great Fire of Rome in 64, and Publius Cornelius Tacitus (who claimed that Nero "formed a desire of cutting off virtue itself") reported that people believed it was instigated by him to clear the way for a palatial complex; Suetonius and Cassius Dio alleged that he sang the "Iliupersis" (the "Sack of Ilium" by Homeros' pupil Arctinus of Miletus) in stage costume while the city burned. Suetonius wrote that he was "carried away by a craze for popularity ... since he was acclaimed as the equal of Apollo in music and of the Sun in driving a chariot, he had planned to emulate the exploits of Hercules as well." However, that he was "carried away by a craze for popularity... since he was acclaimed as the equal of Apollo in music and of the Sun in driving a chariot, he had planned to emulate the exploits of Hercules as well." However, his contemporary Dion Chrysostomos indicated that he was popular among commoners, "for so far as the rest of his subjects were concerned, there was nothing to prevent his continuing to be Emperor for all time, seeing that even now everybody wishes he were still alive. And the great majority do believe that he still is" a legend that St. Augustine still referred to in the 5th century. Unaware that the Senate was reluctant to carry out its intention to beat him to death, and too cowardly to commit suicide, he ordered his private secretary to kill him; that scribe's slave, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, described Nero as spoiled, angry, and unhappy. "Qualis artifex pereo" (What an artist dies in me) he proclaimed about his end. According to the Hebrew numerology of gematria, "Nero Caesar" (written in Aramaic) equals 666 (the sign of the devil in "Revelations," written at about the time of Nero's reign), and also in the numeric equivalent of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and also in the Hebrew transliteration of his name in Greek.DuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.com