Nero

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Nero (ad 37–68), Roman emperor, whose patronage of the arts extended to appearing himself upon the stage. Infamous for his cruelty, he ordered the murder of his mother Agrippina in 59 and wantonly executed leading Romans. His reign witnessed a fire which destroyed half of Rome in 64; in Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars, it is said that after watching the fire, Nero dressed himself in his tragedian's costume and sang The Fall of Ilium. This story gave rise to the expression to fiddle while Rome burns (although Nero's instrument would have been the lyre).

A wave of uprisings in ad 68 led to his flight from Rome and his eventual suicide.

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