by
Damien F. Mackey
Who, then, was this Nero?
Where does Nero fit into
this list of kings?
And can Nero be the
man-beast numbered 666 in John’s Revelation 13:18?
Introduction
The emperor
Nero I have found extremely difficult to slot into an appropriate time frame in
my revision of ancient history.
In this
sense, Nero has been for me like - in the case of Assyrian history - the
difficult Ashurnasirpal, or his presumed (but not actual) son-successor,
Shalmaneser so-called III.
In earlier
times I would simply have considered Nero as – just as the text books tell us –
a Roman emperor who reigned in the era thereby assigned to him, after Claudius.
The
conventional (or text book) succession of Roman rulers is given as follows:
1st
century AD
- (Julius Caesar)
- Augustus (27 bce–14 ce)
- Tiberius (14–37 ce)
- Caligula (37–41 ce)
- Claudius (41–54 ce)
- Nero (54–68 ce)
- Galba (68–69 ce)
- Otho (January–April 69 ce)
- Aulus Vitellius (July–December
69 ce)
- Vespasian (69–79 ce)
- Titus (79–81 ce)
- Domitian (81–96 ce)
- Nerva (96–98 ce)
2nd
century AD
- Trajan (98–117 ce)
- Hadrian (117–138 ce)
- Antoninus Pius (138–161 ce)
….
But my
revision of these names – so far skirting around Nero (Galba, Otho, Vitellius)
– has played havoc with this list, which mischief on my part accords with my
view (focussing upon Assyro-Babylonia) that the:
Chaotic
King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences
(6) Chaotic King
Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences
At my hands,
the Egyptian, Assyrian and Chaldeo-Babylonian king lists have undergone major
streamlining.
And so has
the above ‘Roman’ list (still very much a work in progress, though).
Thus:
-
Julius Caesar is found to have been a fictitious composite,
partly based upon Jesus Christ:
Julius Caesar legends borrowed, in part,
from life of Jesus Christ
(6) Julius Caesar
legends borrowed, in part, from life of Jesus Christ
-
Augustus is the Seleucid Greek king, Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ (re-dated
to the Infancy of Jesus Christ):
Time
to consider Hadrian, that ‘mirror-image’ of Antiochus Epiphanes, as also the
census emperor Augustus
-
Tiberius. I have left the door open for the possibility of a merger of
Tiberius with Claudius:
Tiberius – Claudius
similarities
(8) Tiberius -
Claudius similarities
-
Caligula, or Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, is a crazier
version of Augustus (the Greek Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ - also ‘Epimanes’, the
“Madman”).
-
Trajan, Hadrian (Augustus, Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ above),
Antoninus Pius, all these names belong to the one, same ruler:
Hadrianus
Traianus Caesar – Trajan transmutes to Hadrian
(1)
Hadrianus Traianus
Caesar – Trajan transmutes to Hadrian
No
room for Antoninus Pius
(1) No room for
Antoninus Pius
Who, then, was Nero?
Where does Nero fit into
this list of kings?
And can Nero be the
man-beast numbered 666 in John’s Revelation 13:18?
Was Nero a primary ruler,
or a secondary one?
The reason that I ask this
is because Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’, and the various alter egos whom I have
assigned to him, all now to be recognised as Greek, had a notable
second:
Herod, the
emperor’s signet right-hand man
(3) Herod, the
emperor's signet right-hand man
-
In
the case of Antiochus himself, that man was Philip (I Maccabees
6:14-15):
“Then he called Philip,
one of his most trusted advisers, and put him in charge of his whole
empire. He gave him his crown, robe, and official ring, and authorized him
to educate his son Antiochus the Fifth and bring him up to be king”.
-
In
the case of Augustus, that man was Marcus Agrippa, his right-hand man.
He was also Herod ‘the Great’.
-
In
the case of Caligula, it was, again, Marcus Agrippa:
Caligula exalts Marcus Agrippa
(3) Caligula
exalts Marcus Agrippa
-
In
the case of Hadrian, that man was Herodes [Herod] ‘Atticus’.
All of this is fully explained in my “Herod” article above.
Nero, I have ultimately
concluded, was a primary ruler, an emperor, rather than a powerful second.
For Nero has been likened
to my various versions of the biblical “Caesar Augustus” (cf. Luke 2:1),
likened to Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’; likened to Caligula; and likened to the
bearded philhellenic ‘Greekling’, Hadrian.
It appears that Nero had
even tried to surpass Augustus.
This has led me more
recently to line up Nero, instead, with Tiberius, who, in turn, shared
similarities with Claudius. On this, see e.g. my article:
Tiberius Claudius
Nero
In the course of my earlier
efforts, when I was yet considering that Nero may have been yet another
manifestation of Caesar Augustus, I had wondered: If, then, Nero was a primary
ruler, who could his powerful second have been, to equate with our composite
second as presented above?:
Philip/Marcus
Agrippa/Herod[es]/Atticus
And I thought that I may
have been on to something, based on appearances, with Nero’s man, Ofonius Tigellinus of Greek
descent, looking incredibly similar to Augustus’s second, Marcus Agrippa.
Ofonius Tigellinus - Wikipedia
Ofonius Tigellinus …. (c. 10 – 69) was a prefect of the Roman imperial bodyguard, known as the Praetorian Guard, from 62 until 68, during
the reign of Emperor Nero. Tigellinus gained imperial favour through his
acquaintance with Nero's mother Agrippina
the Younger,
and was appointed prefect upon the death of his predecessor Sextus
Afranius Burrus,
a position Tigellinus held first with Faenius Rufus and then Nymphidius
Sabinus.
….
Tigellinus was said by the Roman historian Tacitus to have had an
immoral youth and a vicious old age. ….
As an adult, he first worked as a merchant in Greece. …. Later,
he inherited a fortune, bought land in Apulia and Calabria on the Italian
mainland and devoted himself to breeding racehorses. It was through this
profession that he eventually gained the acquaintance and favor of Nero, whom he aided and abetted in his vices and
cruelties. …. Settling in Rome in about 60, he became Urban Prefect of the three Urban Cohorts, the city's paramilitary
police force. On the death of Sextus
Afranius Burrus in
62, Tigellinus succeeded him as Prefect of the Praetorian Guard. …. He persecuted
his successive co-prefects, Faenius Rufus and Nymphidius
Sabinus,
to secure his position as one of Nero's closest and most trusted advisors. He
also fabricated evidence to justify the murder of Nero's first wife, Claudia Octavia. In 64, he made himself
notorious for the orgies that he arranged in the Basin of Agrippa. ….
In July of 64, he was suspected of incendiarism in connection
with the Great
Fire of Rome.
After the fire had initially subsided it broke out again in Tigellinus' estate
in the Amaelian district of the city. This led to the claim by Tacitus that
Tigellinus was an arsonist. ….
In 65, during the investigation into the abortive conspiracy
of Gaius Calpurnius Piso, he and Nero's second
wife, Poppaea
Sabina,
formed a kind of imperial privy council, falsely accusing
the courtier and novelist Petronius Arbiter of treason. Under
house-arrest in the coastal resort of Cumae, Petronius did not wait for a sentence of
execution to be passed. Instead, he chose to commit suicide by repeatedly
slitting and rebinding his wrists—apparently over a period of several days,
during which he entertained his friends … until he finally chose to be fatally
drained of blood. ….
In 67 Tigellinus accompanied Nero on his tour of Greece. He had a role in the
death of the famous General Corbulo, who had also been
invited to come to Greece but was ordered to commit suicide.
In 68, when Nero's downfall appeared imminent, Tigellinus
deserted him, supposedly suffering from 'incurable bodily diseases' ….
[End of quote]
But I am now far rather
inclined to identify Nero’s man, Tigellinus, with Tiberius’s man, Sejanus:
One or two
villains: Sejanus and Tigellinus?
(4) One or two
villains: Sejanus and Tigellinus?
also of comparable
appearance:
Sejanus
Nero not named as such in Bible
Of all the names of
supposed Roman emperors listed above, the only ones that appear in the Bible
under those exact names are:
Augustus (Luke 2:1);
Tiberius (Luke 3:1);
Claudius (Acts 11:28).
Given my unexpected finding that:
Rome [is]
surprisingly minimal in Bible
(2) Rome
surprisingly minimal in Bible
I
am leaning towards the view that some, if not most, of the ‘Roman’ names listed
above were actually Greeks (certainly, Augustus; Caligula; Trajan; Hadrian;
Antoninus Pius).
What,
then, about the philhellenic Nero?
One
of Nero’s names (Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus) actually refers to the beard.
Ahenobarbus = “red (bronze) beard”.
He
presumably became Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.
Nero
is most probably a nickname, meaning “strong” or “vigorous”, derived from Nereus,
a Greek sea god associated with strength and power.
But nowhere do we find the
name Nero in the Bible.
Nero in need of alter
egos
Nero’s reputation as a
builder on a vast scale and his impressive architectural achievements, these
are not fully supported archaeologically:
Nero’s missing
architecture
(2)
Nero's missing
architecture
Was the so-called Domus Aurea of Nero
actually a Flavian enterprise?
(2) Was the
so-called Domus Aurea of Nero actually a Flavian enterprise?
One can conclude either
that Nero did not build them. Or, that he did, but under a different name, an alter
ego.
In the case of certain
Egyptian pharaohs who were reputedly renowned builders, but whose output is not
apparent from archaeology (e.g. pharaoh Psusennes), I have had success in
finding alter egos that have perfectly saved the situation.
Some great names in
history, belonging to rulers considered to have been significant builders,
appear to be lacking crucial evidence for their building works.
For example:
Where has Trajan’s
Forum gone?
(3)
Where has Trajan’s
Forum gone?
